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XPERIENCE; 

RISE  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CONCEPT 
IX  1  HE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


THESIS  SUBMITTED  Ri   PARTIAi     F'   IT' 
HEQUIREMF..STS    v^^l: 
[Hi.  DOCTOR  ATE  IN   PHILOSOE 


NEW    Y^JEK    i:' 


MARC  I  S  NE  L'  S'l  A  y'  DTFAl 


NEW   \ij[:V.: 
liii:  GuKENwicn  Prtn  n;:G  C 
1907 


\ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/experiencerisedeOOneusrich 


EXPERIENCE; 

THE  UISE  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CONCEPT 
IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


A  THESIS  SUBMITTED  IN   PARTIAL    FULFILLMENT  OF 

REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

THE  DOCTORATE  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

AT  THE 

.NEW  YORK   UNIVERSITY 
JUNE.  1906 


BY 

MARCUS  NEUSTAEDTER,  M.  D. 


NEW  YORK: 

The  Greenwich  Printing  Company 

1907 


Table  of  Contents 


Introduction. — Reason  why  ancient  philosophy  before  the 
Stoics  is  not  concerned  with  the  concept. — The  Sophist 
movement  a  step  in  this  direction. — The  Stoic's  concept 
of  experience  as  a  criterion  of  truth. — Sceptics  opposing 
the  dogmatism  of  Stoics. — Descartes'  right  beginning  and 
dogmatic  culmination  in  his  philosophy. — Locke's  in- 
quiry.— His  concept  of  experience. — Hume  destroys  knowl- 
edge of  things. — Kant's  exposition  of  the  concept. — Fichte 
and  Hegel  supplementing  Kant. — Herbart's  theory. — 
Pragmatism Pp.  vii-xiv 

I 

The  Stoic  exposition  of  the  concept  of  experience  as 
6}A7teipia  /AeBoSiH?}. — Their  HpiTtjpiov  oi truth.. — ^Thesoul 
as  a  tabula  rasa. — ^The  combination  of  memories  gives  ex- 
perience  Pp.  15-16 

II 

Mediaeval  philosophy  theological. — Dawning  of  the  concept 
in  Occam's  philosophy. — As  a  combination  of  perception 
and  thought P.  17 

III 

Experience  of  Paracelsus  as  Erfahrung. — First  mentioned  in 
the  German  language P.  18 

IV 

Locke's  methodological  elaboration  of  the  concept  of  ex- 
perience.— Reassertion    of    the    Stoic    tabula    rasa. — Ex- 


296268 


IV 

perience  the  source  of  ideas. — Empirical  explanation  of 
experience. — His  refutation  of  innate  ideas. — Experience 
through  and  through  sensuous. — Distinction  between 
primary  and  secondary  quaUties. — Space  and  time  ob- 
tained from  experience. — Simple  and  complex  ideas. — 
Origin  of  knowledge  in  ideas,  which  constitute  experience. — 
General  ideas  and  their  connection  with  language;  a  result 
of  the  development  of  the  concept  of  experience. — ^The 
essentials  and  limitations  of  his  philosophy Pp.  19-28 

V 

Hume  carries  Locke's  theory  to  its  logical  conclusion. . .  Ideas 
representing  sense  perceptions. — Knowledge  of  things 
impossible. — Existence  of  ideas  such  as  substance  and 
causality  denied. — His  influence  on  Kant Pp.  28-31 

VI 

Kant's  concept  of  experience. — A  continuous  combination 
of  sensuous  intuition,  a  synthesis  by  the  understanding. — 
Space  and  time  as  necessary  conditions  a  priori. — Material 
of  sensation  subsumed  under  these  formal  elements. — The 
mind  acting  on  the  sensuous  intuition  through  the  categories 
of  the  understanding. — Sensuous  intuitions  the  passive 
receptivity  of  the  mind. — The  work  of  the  catagories  as 
active  spontaneity  of  the  mind. — The  combination  of  the 
two  elements  gives  rise  to  experience. — Kant's  didactical 
method  in  the  development  of  the  above  theory. — The 
essentials  and  limitations  of  his  theory Pp.  31-39 

VII 

Fichte  supplements  Kant's  theory. — Develops  Kantian  subjec- 
tivism.— ^The  Ego  as  a  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  experience. — 
Experience  as  the  fact-act. — Categories  generated  in  the 
dialectical  movement  of  the  Ego  and  non-Ego. — Ideas  arising 
with  a  "feeling  of  necessity"  the  basis  of  experience ....  Pp.  39-43 


VIII 

Hegel's  self-unfolding  of  the  spirit  from  perception  (Ans- 
chauimg)  to  conception  (Begriff). — ^This  procedure  a  dialec- 
tical necessity. — Categories  genetically  derived. — Absolute 
experience Pp.  43-45 

IX 

Herbart's  ecclecticism. — His  starting  point  in  experience  as  a 
psychological  factor. — Metaphysics  a  necessary  basis  of 
psychology Pp.  45-48 

X 

Pragmatism  or  Radical  Empiricism. — ^The  concept  of  exper- 
ience as  a  practical  maxim. — Experience  is  the  criterion  of 

truth Pp.  48-52 

Conclusion Pp.  53-55 

Bibliography Pp.  56-58 


Meae    carce   matri    et    sanctoe    memoricB 
patris    met,    omnibus    meis    grammaticis    et 
rhetorihus,  qui  mihi  principes   et  ad  susci- 
piendam    et   ingrediendam   rationem  human- 
itatis  fuerunt  atque  doctoribus  J.   P.   Gordy 
Carolo    Gray    Shaw   et   Roberto   McDougall 
quorum    praelectiones    philosophicas    audivi 
maxima  cum  gratia  haec  dissertatio  inscribitur 


"mXRODUCTlOX." 

In  an  exposition  of  the  historical  development  of  the  con- 
cept of  experience  we  are  dealing  with  an  epistemological  prob- 
lem. We  must  take  account  at  once  of  the  character  of  this 
concept  and  its  relation  to  the  mind  which  is  attempting  to 
get  at  fundamental  truths.  Such  a  problem  could  only  arise 
when  the  mind  begins  to  reflect  upon  the  possibility  of  the  exist- 
ence of  knowledge  and  of  its  origin. 

The  ancient  philosophers  could  not  have  raised  such  a 
question,  for  according  to  them  the  vTorld  in  its  completeness 
was  taken  as  a  fact,  and  the  question  was:  How  did  it  get 
into  the  mind  ?  They  were  only  concerned  with  the  meta- 
physical question  as  to  the  nature  of  the  first  and  ultimate  prin- 
ciples of  a  material  world  order.  Even  the  Sophists,  who  began 
to  lay  stress  on  the  subjective  element;  were  concerned  with 
moral  conduct  rather  than  with  the  problem  of  knowledge. 
But  in  placing  emphasis  on  the  importance  of  looking  upon 
the  individual  as  an  end  in  himself,  they  rebelled  against  the 
existing  conditions  in  philosophy,  in  which  cosmological  prob- 
lems engaged  the  attention  of  thinkers,  rather  than  ^^anthropo- 
logical" ones.  The  Sophist  movement  was  characterized  by  a 
breaking  away  from  these  traditional  methods.  The  new  school 
began  to  inquire  into  the  validity  of  all  the  existing  principles 
and  laws.  Its  members  looked  upon  the  individual  as  a  micro- 
cosmos  in  himself,  who  ought  to  work  out  his  own  destiny. 
When  the  habit  of  inquiring  into  certain  laws  was  acquired 


Vlll 


there  was  no  stop  to  the  progress  of  it.  All  possible  principles 
connected  with  the  welfare  of  the  individual  were  carefully  dis- 
cussed and  thus  great  stress  was  laid  upon  the  individual.  Con- 
clusions previously  arrived  at  were  cast  aside,  and  the  subject 
was  made  the  starting  point  and  criterion  for  truth.  Thus  the 
first  attempt  was  made  to  interpret  the  world  in  terms  of  the 
individual  rather  than  in  the  reverse  order. 

This  same  attempt  characterizes  the  method  of  modern 
philosophy,  where  the  problem  of  knowledge  is  a  fundamental 
one.  Such  a  method  inevitably  leads  to  the  discussion  of  the 
nature  of  experience. 

In  trying  to  define  true  knowledge  the  Sophists  were  look- 
ing for  a  criterion  of  truth.  Protagoras  then  stated  his  cele- 
brated maxim,  ^^Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things."  Things 
are  what  they  appear  to  be  to  the  individual.  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  tendency  to  find  a  subjective  criterion  for  truth  cul- 
minated in  the  rise  of  a  theory  of  the  idea  of  experience  with 
the  Stoics. 

They  were  really  the  first  thinkers  to  inquire  how  we  get 
knowledge  and  whether  it  is  a  given  thing  to  every  man.  In 
their  uncritical  contemplation  it  was  but  natural  to  view  the 
vast  scenery  before  them  as  projecting  its  image  as  it  was  re- 
flected in  the  pupil  of  their  fellows.  And  from  these  observa- 
tions they  were  led  to  theorize  about  the  part  played  by  the 
senses  and  the  soul — a  duality  which  was  then  fully  accepted 
as  existing — -in  the  making  of  a  content  of  consciousness,  which 
they  called  experience.  The  senses  were,  then,  the  active  media 
through  which  the  objects  projected  their  images  upon  the  soul 
as  upon  a  blank  tablet,  or,  according  to  some  Stoics,  making 
impressions  on  it  as  on  a  piece  of  wax.  The  impression  or  state 
was  the  experience  of  the  earlier  Stoics.  The  more  critical  of 
them,  however,  were  not  entirely  satisfied  with  this  theory  and 
amended  it  to  the  effect  that  the  impression  thus  produced  at 
the  same  time  alters  the  state  of  the  soul — in  which  state  the 


IX 

soul  announces  both  its  existence  and  that  of  the  object  The 
originally  vacant  soul  is  thus  filled  with  characters  or  images, 
which  are  retained  by  memory.  The  memorizing  of  these  states 
constituted  for  the  Stoics  knowledge  by  experience.  It  is  per- 
tinent to  state  here  that  this  exposition  of  the  Stoics'  concept 
of  experience  is  very  similar  to  Locke's  critical  elaborations  of 
the  idea  as  the  basis  of  human  knowledge. 

This  dogmatic  assumption  of  the  Stoics  regarding  the 
nature  of  knowledge  did  not  flourish  without  opposition.  The 
Sceptics  attacked  it  with  powerful  weapons.  They  showed  that 
senses  are  deceiving  and  the  intellect  alone  cannot  give  knowl- 
edge. Furthermore,  the  world  of  objectivity  is  totally  inde- 
pendent of  the  subject,  and  no  relation  between  the  knower  and 
the  thing  to  be  knowTi  is  established.  The  chasm  remains  un- 
bridged. 

However  successful  the  Sceptics  may  have  been,  they 
could  not  doubt  the  existence  of  consciousness — a  fact  neither 
to  be  proved  nor  contradicted.  And  this  led  Descartes  in  mod- 
ern times  to  begin  philosophy  by  assuming  the  sceptic  position. 
He  began  by  doubting  everything — even  his  own  existence. 
But  he  was  conscious  of  his  doubt  and  therefore  certain  of 
his  existence.  Thus  his  o^vn  consciousness  became  to  him  the 
ultimate  criterion.  He  did  not,  however,  adhere  to  his  sub- 
jective point  of  view,  but  from  a  clear  and  distinct  idea  which 
he  had  of  God,  dogmatically  inferred  God's  independent  exist- 
ence. His  correct  starting  point  promised,  if  logically  and  criti- 
cally carried  out,,  to  yield 'most  convincing  results,  but  in  his 
digression  into  the  realm  of  Metaphysics  he  completely  failed 
to  reach  the  epistemological  position. 

Locke,  on  the  other  hand,  by  inquiring  into  the  nature 
of  the  human  understanding,  as  preliminary  to  the  inquiry 
into  the  nature  of  the  world,  struck  the  right  point,  and  with 
his  school  the  development  of  the  concept  of  experience  in 
modern  times  assumes  the  character  of  a  methodological  inquiry. 


His  great  merit  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  one  to 
make  a  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
of  things.  There  are  qualities  of  things  with  which  our  mind 
is  impressed  through  the  medium  of  our  senses  in  the  same 
way  as  the  Stoics  argued,  but  these  qualities  are  not  the  sum 
total  of  the  world  of  objectivity.  There  are  qualities  in  addition 
to  those  primary  ones,  which  are  in  us,  such  as:  color,  tone, 
etc.  These  secondary  qualities  are  produced  in  us  as  a  result 
of  the  way  in  which  our  senses  are  aii'ected  by  these  primary 
qualities  of  things.  The  impressions  thus  produced  form  for 
Locke  the  sensuous  experience.  These  experiences  form  the 
ideas  of  our  mind  which  are  the  basis  of  knowledge. 

But  history  was  to  repeat  itself.  The  same  opposition 
that  the  Stoics  had  to  face  became  now  the  lot  of  the  Lockian 
school.  Hume,  the  profoundest  of  modern  sceptics,  carried 
Locke's  theory  to  its  logical  consequences  and  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge  of  primary  qualities  at  all.  In  the  eternal 
flux  of  images  there  is  no  room  for  even  a  permanent  mind. 
All  ithere  is  are  impressions  or  sensations  and  the  union  of 
these.  By  force  of  habit  we  are  accustomed  to  group  these 
in  a  necessary  relation.  We  are  nothing  but  a  lot  of  states  of 
consciousness  made  up  of  the  sum  of  our  sensuous  intuitions  and 
ideas  upon,  these. 

If  this  be  true,  then  Hume's,  as  well  as  the  Pyrrhonic 
scepticism  before  him,  left  a  consciousness  unexplained — a  stuff 
to  be  examined.  And  this  task  was  taken  up  by  Kant.  So  far 
as  our  sensuous  intuitions  go,  Kant  admits,  Hume  was  right. 
But  what  about  the  consciousness  that  acts  upon  these  in- 
tuitions ?  Such  an  ego  w^as  denied  by  Hume,  but  since  no  sat- 
isfactory logical  account  of  such  facts  as  memory  and  identity 
of  personality  was  rendered,  a  reconstruction  of  Hume's  theory 
became  necessary.  The  school  of  Leibnitz,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  which  Kant  w^as  then  still  an  adherent,  while  recognizing 
the  self-activity  of  the  mind  and  certain  innate  possessions  of 


XI 

il,  had  arrived  at  its  standpoint  not  epistemologicaliy  or  criti- 
cally, but  dogmatically.  In  this  conflict  between  the  two  op- 
posing schools  Kant  saw  his  opportunity.  Intuitions  of  the 
senses,  Kant  says,  give  us  sensations,  disconnected,  chaotic  ap- 
pearances, but  without  them  the  mind  can  know  nothing,  be- 
cause they  serve  as  the  material  of  knowledge.  The  mind  must 
react  upon  them,  put  them  together  and  place  them,  as  it  were, 
in  their  respective  gTOups — hold  togetlier  and  synthesize  them, 
so  that  knowledge  may  arise.  Through  this  synthesis,  on  the 
part  of  the  understanding,  of  the  intuitions  received  through  the 
senses,  experience  arises.  This  experience  is  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness, the  knowledge,  the  criterion  of  truth.  Before  we 
proceed  with  our  examination  of  the  history  of  the  further  de- 
velopment of  the  concept  of  experience  up  to  the  present  day, 
we  must  take  account  of  the  way  in  which  Kant  reached  these 
conclusions. 

He  took  an  object  of  knowledge  and  analyzed  it  and  found 
(1)  that  we  have  sensuous  intuitions  and  (2)  that  there  are 
elements  in  it  contributed  by  the  understanding.  A  further 
analysis  of  intuitions  reveals  the  fact  that  there  are  two  a  priori 
elements  of  space  and  time  under  which  all  intuitions  must  be 
subsumed.  They  are  like  colored  glasses,  through  which  we 
must  look  in  order  to  see.  ^ow  it  becomes  the  function  of  the 
mind  to  act  upon  these  intuitions  by  means  of  categories  or  laws 
of  the  understanding.  They  are  universal  and  necessary  con- 
ditions under  which  we  must  subsume  the  se^isuous  perceptions 
in  order  to  be  able  to  judge  intelligently.  And  this  necessity 
means  for  Kant  a  justification  of  their  a  priori  nature.  It  is  , 
not  that  the  a  priori  forms  have  been  there  before  we  began 
to  know  (in  the  Leibnitzian  sense  innate),  but  we  put  them 
there  as  a  necessary  presupposition  to  any  experience,  as  a 
synthesizing  unity  of  the  manifold  intuitions.  It  would  be 
well  to  stop  here  with  our  quest,  for  in  Kant's  theory  the 
concept  of  experience  is  in  its  full  bloom.     But  Kantianism, 


Xll 


after  a  thorough  exploration  of  this  great  field  of  knowledge, 
concludes  with  a  duality  in  which  the  factors  are  separated  by  a 
deep  chasm.  Through  experience  we  attain  to  knowledge  of 
the  phenomenal  world  order.  As  to  the  things-in-themselves, 
the  noumena,  the  substratum  behind  the  phenomenal  world, 
these  we  cannot  know,  because  they  are  in  a  range  outside  of 
any  possible  experience. 

The  successors  of  Kant,  Fichte  and  Hegel  under- 
took to  bridge  this  abyss.  In  doing  it  they  continued  to  develop 
the  concept  of  experience.  Fichte  explains  away  the  thing-in- 
itself  by  making  individual  freedom  the  source  of  it  and  Hegel 
makes  it  dependent  upon  Absolute  experience.  Another  impor- 
tant divergence  from  Kant  is  to  be  noted.  While  Kant  derives 
the  knowledge  of  the  categories  by  an  empirical  study  of  judg- 
ments, Fichte  and  Hegel  attempt  to  arrive  at  them  by  the  dia- 
lectical movement  of  thought  itself.  The  Ego  first  posits  itself. 
But  it  recognizes  the  non-Ego  as  its  object  of  consciousness, 
which  serves  to  give  a  content  to  the  original  Ego  and  produces 
a  third  Egohood,  a  subject-objectivity.  This  movement  com- 
pletes itself  in  a  logical  way.  Through  the  Ego  positing  itself 
we  get,  according  to  the  principle  of  identity,  the  category  of 
quality;  by  its  opposing  itself  to  the  non-Ego  we  get,  accord- 
ing to  the  principle  of  contradiction,  the  category  of  quantity; 
by  uniting  the  two.  Ego  and  non-Ego,  we  get,  according  to  the 
principles  of  excluded  middle  and  sufficient  reason,  the  cate 
gories  of  relation  and  modality.  There  is,  then,  a  constant  gene- 
sis of  these  categories.  But  why  a  genesis  ?  Because  experience, 
according  to  Fichte,  arises  from  an  act  that  springs  from  a  feel- 
ing of  necessity.  He  demands  that  we  must  not  observe  what 
the  consciousness  does,  but  how  it  must  act  in  order  to  gain 
experience.  And  Hegel  assents  to  this,  but  attains  the  cate- 
gories through  genesis  of  an  absolute  experience.  Experience, 
then,  in  Fichte's  and  Hegel's  philosophy  is  the  same  as  in 
Kant's,  but  in  its  genesis  and  application  the  abyss  between 


Xlll 


the  duality  of  the  phenomenal  and  noiimenal  world  order  is 
here  done  away  with,  the  whole  world  being  a  manifestation 
of  a  noiimenal  mind. 

We  have  now  come  on  to  the  period  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  where  no  new  theory  of  the  concept  of  experience 
is  advanced.  As  a  result  of  the  various  theories  of  the  concept 
we  have  learned  the  various  methods  whereby  the  concept  of 
experience  is  attained.  In  order  to  close  with  the  historical 
development  of  the  concept  of  experience,  we  must  also  take 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  Herbart  attempts  to  get  at 
reality  by  treating  of  experience.  P^xperiences,  according  to 
him,  from  whatever  functions  they  may  result,  are  a  necessary 
precondition  to  knoAvledge.  But  we  must  not  accept  them  at 
their  face  value.  We  must  compare  various  experiences  of 
the  same  sort  and  remove  whatever  contradictions,  uncertainties 
or  ambiguities  may  arise  and  thus  gain  a  clear  and  distinct 
insight  into  the  knowledge  sought. 

The  foregoing  is  an  outline  of  the  development  of 
the  concept  of  experience.  It  becomes  now  necessary  to  see  what 
practical  consequences  this  theory  entails;  for,  after  all,  of 
what  use  are  theories,  if  not  practically  applied  in  our  conduct 
of  life.  For,  since  weight  is  placed  upon  the  importance  of  the 
individual,  we  must  take  account  of  the  practical  application 
of  every  theory.  The  Pragmatism  of  to-day  takes  up  this 
question.  It  tires  of  these  theoretical  subtleties.  It  claims  that 
no  theory  in  particular  can  stand  a  searching  scrutiny.  We 
must,  after  all,  go  back  to  the  Empiricism  of  Hume.  All 
knowledge  resolves  itself  ultimately  into  belief  and  rightly  so. 
We  assume  the  truth  as  a  practical  necessity  ex  hypothesi.  Ex- 
perience, no  matter  what  the  particular  one  may  be,  is  the 
criterion  of  truth.  We  must  observe  what  difference  a  certain 
experience,  a  certain  state  or  content  of  consciousness  produces, 
and  if  this  difference  is  the  same  in  every  case  of  the  same 
experience,  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  assume  and  believe  for 


XIV 


practical  purposes  that  this  experience  gives  the  truth.  Prag- 
matism, then,  says  that  if  your  experience  be  the  result  of  a 
sensuous  intuition  acting  upon  a  passive  mind  (Empirical),  or 
the  synthesized  intuitions  by  an  active  understanding  (Criti- 
cal), or,  again,  the  result  of  a  fact-act,  a  unity  of  subject-objec- 
tivity (Fichte  and  Hegel's),  it  is  practically  the  truth  as  long 
as  it  gives  the  same  idea  with  each  test. 

With  these  preparatory  remarks,  we  can  begin  the  exposi- 
tion of  our  subject  matter  in  detail : 

(1)  To  trace  history  of  the  concept  of  experience  from 
the  time  it  became  a  criterion  of  truth. 

(2)  To  show  the  motives  which  actuated  the  various 
thinkers  in  adopting  experience  as  a  criterion  for  estimating 
the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the  world. 

(3)  To  show  the  growth  of  the  concept,  in  the  history 
of  philosophy,  as  an  organic  one  (each  philosopher  completing 
or  building  up  his  concept  as  a  result  of  inadequacies  he  found 
in  preceding  philosophers — especially  true  in  the  Lockian  and 
Kantian  movement). 


The  concept  of  experience  receives  its  first  scientific  stamp 
in  the  Stoic  e^neipia  jueSodix?^  as  a  npirrfpiov  of  truth.  Al- 
though Aristotle  speaks  of  xpivcov  and  xpivovTa'^,  it  was  not 
in  the  meaning  of  the  Stoic  criterion,  for  he  speaks  of  it  in 
connection  with  such  idle  qiiestions  as  waking  and  sleeping. 
The  Stoics  demand  sensuous  distinctness  in  their  mode  of  cog- 
nition, and  this,  they  argue,  arises  from  objects  of  experience. 
All  knowledge,  therefore,  based  upon  this  assertion  arises  from 
sensuous  perceptions.  The  soul  resembles  a  blank  piece  of 
paper,  upon  which  representations  are  afterwards  written  by 
our  senses.  Experience,  then,  as  a  criterion  of  knowledge 
was  KaTaX-qmiKi)  qyavraaia  — the  representation  which,  be- 
ing produced  in  us  by  the  object,  is  able,  as  it  were,  to  take 
hold  or  grasp  (  uaraXa^j-fidyeiv )  that  object.  Zeno  defines 
representation  as  an  impression  upon  the  sovl^rvnaoGis  svtpvxv) 
and  Cleanthes  compares  it  to  the  impression  made  upon  a  piece 
of  ^yax;  but  Chryppopus  opposes  the  definition  of  Zeno,  taken 
in  its  literal  sense,  and  himself  de^nes  qjavraffia  as  an  altera 
tion  in  the  soul  (€T8poiGjffi3  'hvxffs)-  The  cpavraaia  itself 
is  only  a  state  (  nd^i^s)  produced  in  the  soul  to  which  it 
announces  both  its  existence  and  that  of  its  object.  They  fur 
ther  continue  to  argue  that,  through  our  perceptions  of  external 
objects  and  also  of  internal  states,  the  originally  vacant  soul 
is  filled  with  images,   as  if  with  written  characters    {^anep 


*  Metaphys.  IV,  fi. 


16 

XoiftTc^y  eyepyoi/  eh  a ttoj/ pa cpr/ v)^SiJid  then  the  memor}'  thereof 
remains  behind.  From  the  combination  of  similar  memories 
arises  experience  as  ro  rc^v  ojuoeiSc^r  ttXtj^os. 

The  concept  is  formed  from  single  perceptions  by  general- 
ization, which  may  be  either  a  spontaneous  or  unconscious 
(av€7TiT€xyf/ro3)  act  or  a  conscious  and  methodical  one  (Si 
vjuerepas  SidaanaXias  uai  STti/isXeias  )  ;  so  that  in  the  former 
case  "common  ideas"  or  "anticipations"  i'woim  xoival  or 
7rpoXj}(pei3)  are  formed ;  in  the  latter,  concepts.  Common  ideas 
are  general  notions  developed  in  the  course  of  the  nature  of  all 
men.*  These  ideas  (although  termed  ejbKpvroi  7tpokr)il:ei3) 
were  not  viewed  by  the  earlier  Stoics  at  least  as  innate,  but 
only  as  the  natural  outgrowth  from  perceptions.  Rationality 
is  a  product  of  the  progressing  development  of  the  individual; 
it  is  generally  "agglomerated"  (  avva^poi^Lrai  )  out  of  his 
perceptions  and  representations  until  about  the  fourteenth  year 
of  life.  It  is  only  then  that  man  is  able  to  form  concepts,  judg- 
ments and  syllogisms,  for  their  formation  depends  on  the  ob- 
servance of  certain  rules,  which  he  could  not  possibly  grasp 
during  the  undeveloped  stage.  Here  Ave  have,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  exposition  and  the  definition 
of  the  concept  of  experience.  The  elements  entering  into  the 
making  up  of  the  concept  are  the  idea  of  sensation  of  the 
functioning  sense-organs  and  the  idea  of  an  activity  in  the 
mind  called  forth  by  the  stimulus  of  the  senses.  This  stimulus 
through  the  senses  then  gives  rise  to  a  self-realization  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  individual. 

The  Stoics,  on  the  borderline  of  ancient  thought,  are  the 
only  philosophers  wdio  first  defined  and  expounded  a  theory  of 
the  concept  of  experience  both  from  a  logical  and  a  psychologi- 
cal standpoint. 


*  Diog.  L.  VII,  54. 


17 

II. 

During  the  mediseval  period  philosophy  is  assuming  a 
theological  character,  and  not  until  man  began  to  adjust  the 
disciplines  to  a  scientific  standard  can  we  find  the  concept  of 
experience  in  its  gro^vth.  Toward  the  end  of  this  period  Wil- 
liam of  Occam  speaks  of  the  concept  ol  experience  from  a  logi- 
cal point  of  view.  He  argues  that  the  fundamental  principles 
of  science  are  obtained  from  experience  by  induction.  The 
concept  of  experience  is  defined  by  him  as  a  process  of  percep- 
tion and  thought  regulated  by  norms  of  logic.  The  knowledge 
of  whether  a  thing  is  or  is  not,  Occam  claims,  we  get  by  in- 
tuition. We  can  only  gain  the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
individuals,  not  of  universals,  for  these  are  general  concepts 
formed  in  thought  by  abstraction.  And  in  order  to  know  the 
particular  we  must  resort  to  experience.  By  judgment  we  can 
come  into  possession  of  knowledge.  The  act  of  judgment  (actus 
judicativus),  however,  presupposes  the  act  of  apprehension 
(actus  apprehensivus).  Our  states  of  consciousness  as  such  we 
know  by  experience  only;  their  essence,  however,  we  cannot 
know,  because  experience  cannot  there  be  applied  as  a  proof 
on  behalf  of  an  hypothesis.  It  is  evident,  then,  why  Occam 
afiirms  that  science  is  the  knowledge  of  the  necessarily  true, 
which  knoAvledge  can  be  generated  by  the  agency  of  syllogistical 
thinking,  whose  fundamental  principles  are  obtained  from 
experience  by  induction.  He  does  not  show,  however,  how  it  is 
possible  for  apodictical  knowledge  to  rest  on  the  basis  of  expe- 
rience. Consequently  he  was  not  protected  against  the  objec- 
tion of  the  subjective  a  priori  philosophers,  namely,  that  the 
principles  on  which  the  generalization  of  experience  depends 
cannot  themselves  be  derived  from  experience.  From  the  above 
statements  and  from  the  fact  that  he  relegates  all  knowledge 
transcending  experience  to  the  sphere  of  mere  faith,  we  can 
see  that  the  concept  of  experience  begins  to  loom  up  in  Occam's 
philosophy  as  a  criterion  of  validity. 


18 

III. 

During  the  period  extending  from  the  Stoics  to  modern 
times  the  development  of  the  concept  of  experience  suffers  a 
sort  of  hibernating  shimber,  only  to  awaken  again  in  the  earlier 
period  of  modern  times.  The  first  sign  of  it  we  find  in  the 
works  of  Paracelsus,  the  physician.  He  mentions  the  concept 
of  experience  in  the  words :  Erf ahrung,  Erfahrenheit,  Erf ahr- 
nuss  and  Experienz.  These  termini  contain  for  him  a  theory 
of  knowledge. 

The  following  will,  however,  prove  that  in  one  passage  he 
regards  experience  as  a  logical  concept  and  again  places  it  out- 
side of  philosophy.  He  says:  ^'Das  Experimentum  ad  fortem 
geht  ohne  die  scientia;  aber  Experimentia  mit  der  Gewissheit 
wohin  zu  gebrauchen  mit  der  scientia.  Denn  scientia  ist  die 
Mutter  der  Experienz.  Ohne  der  scientia  ist  nichts  da."*  On 
the  other  hand,  he  says :  "Also  ist  die  Arzney  im  Anf ang  gestan- 
den,  dass  keine  Theorica  gew^esen  ist,  allein  eine  Erfahren- 
heit.^t  The  termini  Experientia  and  Experienz  stand  for 
the  concept  of  experience  (for  they  are  spoken  of  in  connection 
with  scientific  problems),  while  the  terminus  Erfahrenheit 
stands  for  data  of  experience. 

During  the  period  of  independent  and  scientific  research 
we  find  here  and  there  a  mention  of  experience,  but  not  as  a 
logical  concept.  Data  of  experience  are  here  required  from 
experiments  in  order  to  study  the  law  of  natural  forces.  Ex- 
perience becomes,  however,  the  terminus  a  quo  at  all  events  and 
in  this  fact  we  find  the  true  development  of  a  subsequent 
criterion  of  all  knowledge.  It  marks  the  period  of  Empiricism 
from  the  Stoic  inneipia  up  to  Locke.  It  asserts  that  the 
method  of  philosophical  enquiry  is  experiment,  and  philosophi- 
cal knowledge  is  limited  to  objects  of  experience. 


*  Laoyr.  Medicor.  op.  6. 

t  Commentaries  on  the  Aphorisms  of  Hypocrates. 


19 

IV. 

The  empirical  school  had  its  adherents  in  England,  be- 
ginning with  Bacon  and  ending  with  Locke's  theory  of  knowl- 
edge; in  France  with  Condillac's  sensualism,  and  in  Germany 
with  Hollbach's  materialism.  In  Locke  we  find  a  truly  scien- 
tific elaboration  of  the  concept  of  experience.  Under  the  con- 
cept of  experience  he  understands  the  impressions  upon  our 
mind  produced  from  objects  which  are  received  through  the 
medium  of  the  senses.  In  other  words,  sensuous  experience  is 
the  sole  basis  of  knowledge.  And  in  this  connection  we  may 
cite  his  famous  dictum :  "Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius 
fuerit  in  sensu."*  It  is  in  his  "Essay  Concerning  the  Human 
Understanding"  that  he  sets  out  to  elaborate  the  theory  of  hia 
concept  of  experience. 

The  profound  nature  of  Locke's  inquiry  is  here  manifest. 
Rationalism  is  now  to  be  subjected  to  a  psychological  examina- 
tion. The  study  of  the  nature  of  the  mind  becomes  more  impor- 
tant than  that  of  the  material  world.  The  increasing  volume 
of  the  mind,  as  it  is  fed  by  all  the  streams  of  sensibility,  be- 
comes manifest  and  the  study  thereof  gives  an  impetus  to  later 
investigations  in  Psychology.  In  undertaking  this  profound 
task  Locke  becomes  the  father  of  modern  Psychology. 

Isow,  we  have  seen  above  what  Locke  understands  by  ex- 
perience. Is  there  any  part  of  experience  which  is  native  to 
the  mind  and  not  derived  from  outside?  Locke  answers  in 
the  negative. 

It  becomes  necessary,  before  leading  up  to  the  discussion 
of  the  theory  of  experience  as  a  source  of  our  ideas,  to  examine 
the  false  pretensions  of  Rationalism  by  carefully  looking  into 
the  facts  of  consciousness  and  the  manner  in  which  our  ideas 
originate.  This  relates  to  the  supposed  existence  of  innate  ideas. 
"When  men  have  found  some  general  propositions  that  could 


*  Locke,  Eeeay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  II,  Chap.  I,  24. 


20 

not  be  doubted  of  as  soon  as  understood,  it  was  a  short  and  easy 
way  to  conclude  them  innate.""^  The  second  step  in  the  ex- 
planation of  the  theory  of  the  concept  of  experience  is  to  estab- 
lish the  empirical  explanation  of  experience. 

Locke  refutes  the  theory  of  innate  ideas  {Hoirai  irvoiai). 
If  ideas  are  innate,  they  are  a  mystery  not  to  be  investigated 
or  explained.  He  argues  against  this  theory  by  taking  the 
example  of  the  consciousness  or  mind  of  a  child,  idiot  and 
savage.  Is  the  principle  of  contradiction,  for  instance  (which, 
according  to  Rationalism,  is  innate  and  necessary  to  experi- 
ence), already  existing  in  the  mind  of  the  infant,  whose  at- 
tainments go  no  further  than  the  ability  to  scream  when  it  is 
uncomfortable  ?t 

If,  however,  it  is  argued  that  these  ideas  are  dormant  in 
the  minds  of  new-born  men  and  become  exhibited  in  conscious- 
ness as  the  reason  matures,  it  would  be  tantamount  to  saying 
that  reason  makes  men  know  what  they  knew  already.  If  mathe- 
matical truths  are  innate,  all  relations  of  space  and  time  must 
be  so  equally;  if  self-evident  propositions  are  innate,  then 
such  truths  as  that  sweet  is  not  bitter,  black  is  not  white,  must 
be  innate  also.  If,  however,  the  human  child  does  not  come 
into  the  world  Avith  an  inborn  treasure  of  certainties,  truths  arid 
conceptions,  where  then  is  the  true  origin,  the  only  primary 
source  of  all  our  ideas  and  knowledge  to  be  sought? 

The  answer  is:  In  experience  alone,  which  we  receive 
through  the  gates  of  our  senses.  Or,  as  quoted  above,  "J^ihil 
est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  fuerit  in  sensu."J 

The  soul  is'originally  a  tabula  rasa,^  a  blank  sheet  of  paper 


*  Op.  Cit.,  Book  I,  Chap.  IV,  24. 
t  Book  I,  Chap.  Ill,  2. 
t  Book  II,  Chap.  I,  2. 
§  Book  II,  Chap.  I,  24. 


21 

upon  which  sensations  are  written  at  v.ill.  The  end  organs  are 
the  avenues  conducting  them  to  the  mind.  Thus  ideas  are 
created.  The  soul  is  as  little  able  to  create  for  itself  ideas 
out  of  nothing  or  to  destroy  those  which  have  been  framed 
as  man  is  to  create  or  destroy  the  smallest  mote  in  the  sunbeam. 
'No  idea  of  color  can  be  given  to  the  blind  or  of  sound  to 
the  deaf. 

Reflection  is  opposed  to  sensation.  The  latter  is  experience 
of  the  external  world,  the  former  of  the  inner  one,  namely, 
a  mental  state.  But  even  internal  reflection  would  be  impossi- 
ble if  sensation  did  not  first  stimulate  this  state  of  mind.  The 
mind  in  this  state  is  sometimes  active,  sometimes  passive.  Per- 
ception is  the  representation  of  things  external  given  by  sensible 
impressions.  The  mind  in  this  is  purely  passive ;  it  is  as  power- 
less to  escape  or  alter  these  impressions  as  a  mirror  to  change 
the  impressions  made  in  it.  It  is,  therefore,  an  attenuated 
form  of  external  experience.  Retention  is  the  revival  of  former 
representations,  and  the  mind  in  this  is  not  wholly  passive. 
There  is  a  natural  defect  of  the  human  mind  associated  witli 
the  faculty  of  recollection,  namely,  that  the  latter  only  recalls 
its  objects  in  a  succession  or  by  an  association.  "Although 
we  may  conceive  some  superior,  created,  intellectual  beings, 
which  in  the  faculty  may  have  constantly  in  view  the  whole 
scene  of  all  their  former  actions,  wherein  no  one  of  the  thoughts 
they  have  ever  had  may  slip  out  of  their  sight,*  the  human 
mind  has  no  such  power. 

All  the  functions  of  the  senses  belong  also  to  the  lower  ani- 
mals. The  highest  attribute  of  reason,  however,  of  which  lower 
animals  are  bereft,  is  to  compare,  distinguish,  unite  and  sepa- 
rate ;  and  in  this  the  human  mind  far  surpasses  that  of  brutes 
in  virtue  of  the  gift  of  abstraction,  or  universal  notions,  which 
he  alone  possesses.     In  acquiring  experience  the  mind,  as  w^e 


*  Essay,  Book  I,  Chap.  Ill,  26. 


22 

have  seen,  is  passive.  But  in  the  higher  processes  of  reason 
and  understanding,  which  are  stimulated  by  the  material  of 
perception,   the  mind   becomes   active. 

In  all  this  we  see  a  general  outline  of  the  analysis  of  men- 
tal operations  and  their  dependence  on  the  world  of  sense. 
Through  this  analysis  of  the  nature  of  our  knowledge  Locke 
then  is  led  to  draw  another  important  distinction  between  sen- 
sations and  the  real  essential  qualities  of  bodies — or  the  dis- 
tinction between  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  bodies. 
If  we  can  only  learn  by  experience  of  the  external  world  as 
much  as  affections  of  our  senses  tell  u.s,  it  becomes  a  question 
how  much  of  the  data  of  experience  are  due  to  this  subjective 
element,  and  must  be  allowed  for  accordingly,  if  wo  wish  to 
attain  to  knowledge  of  the  thing  as  it  is  in  itself.  It  is 
obvious,  for  instance,  that  the  sweetness  of  sugar  exists  in  our 
palate,  heat,  light,  color  are  feelings  in  me,  but  they  do  not 
constitute  the  qualities  in  things,  and  can  only  be  regarded 
as  the  effects  produced  by  the  objects  on  our  organs  of  sense. 
What  then  are  the  qualities  pertaining  to  things  in  themselves  ? 
Obviously  these  primary  and  original  qualities  which  are  in- 
separable from  the  idea  of  matter  are  the  same  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, and  present  in  the  smallest  atoms  such  qualities 
as,  for  instance,  solidity,  extension,  figure,  position  and  number 
of  parts,  motion,  etc.  ^^These  ideas  of  primary  qualities  of 
bodies  are  resemblances  of  them,  and  their  patterns  directly 
exist  in  the  bodies  themselves;  but  the  ideas,  produced  in  us 
by  secondary  qualities,  have  no  resemblance  to  them  at  all. 
There  is  nothing  like  some  of  our  ideas  existing  in  the  bodies 
themselves.  The  bodies  are  only  the  power  to  produce  those 
sensations  in  us,  and  what  is  sweet,  blue,  or  warm  in  idea,  is 
but  the  certain  bulk,  figure  and  motion  of  the  insensible  parts 
in  the  bodies  themselves  which  affect  us  in  particular  ways."^ 


*  Essay,  Book  IT,  Chap.  VIII,  9,  10. 


23 

These  primary  qualities  are  also '  derived  by  sensation,  but 
not  modified  by  it. 

Of  space  and  time,  he  says,  we  obtain  an  idea  by  experi- 
ence, namely,  sight  and  touch.  These  stock  ideas  are  capable  of 
innumerable  modifications  and  this  leads  us  to  the  idea  of 
infinity.  The  position  of  an  object  can  only  be  determined  in 
relation  to  something  else.  Without  space  neither  solidity  nor 
motion  is  possible;  but  the  latter,  the  true  qualities  of  matter, 
differ  toto  coelo  from  space.  As  to  time,  he  argues,  Ave  reach 
the  conception  of  it  by  reflecting  upon  our  feelings  and  thoughts 
in  the  order  in  which  they  succeed  each  other  in  the  mind; 
without  perceptions,  we  should  not  have  the  idea  or  duration  of 
time.  The  idea  of  succession  cannot  be  derived  from  motion; 
on  the  contrary,  the  latter  has  to  be  translated  into  mental 
sequence.  As  the  idea  of  space,  so  does  the  idea  of  time  con- 
duct us  to  that  of  infinity,  i.e.,  to  the  idea  of  eternity. 

The  ideas  of  liberty  we  get  from  the  inner  experience  of  our 
will — a  mental  inclination  to  choose. 

About  the  idea  of  material  and  immaterial  substance  Locke 
says:  They  are  something  which  we  imagine  underlying  and 
supporting,  now  the  sensible,  perceptible  properties  of  external 
objects,  now  the  forms  of  consciousness  which  we  perceive  as 
states.  But  what  this  thing  may  be,  we  know  as  little  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other.  Forces  and  effects  constitute  the 
major  part  of  our  ideas  of  substance.  So  that  what  little  we 
know  of  them  we  get  from  experience  by  hypothesis.  But 
while  we  cannot  possibly  conceive  the  production  of  these 
effects,  we  have  constant  experience  of  all  our  voluntary  motions 
as  produced  in  us  by  the  free  action  or  thought  of  our  own 
minds  only.  In  a  word,  all  our  ide^^s  of  substance  are  but 
"colliections  of  simple  ideas  Avith  a  supposition  of  something  to 
which  thev  belong:  and  in  Avhich  thev  subsist.''* 


*  Essay,  Book  II,  Chap.  XXIIl 


24 

The  complex  ideas  he  divides  into  three  classes :  Modes,  re- 
lations and  substances.  Our  daily  experience  of  the  alterations 
in  external  things,  the  observation  of  the  constant  change  of 
ideas  in  our  mind,  depending  partly  on  external  impressions, 
partly  on  our  choice,  leads  the  human  understanding  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  same  changes  that  have  been  observed  will 
also  take  place  in  future  in  the  same  manner  and  through  the 
same  causes.  Receiving  impressions  is,  as  above  stated,  passive 
power,  and  reflecting  upon  them  in  our  minds  is  active  power. 
And  by  combining  the  two  processes  we  get  a  clear  concept. 
Internal  experience  teaches  us  that  by  mere  volition  we  can 
set  our  body  in  motion.  Will  is,  therefore,  a  cause  to  effect  a 
purpose.  So  we  get  the  ideas  of  causal  relations  and  other  rela- 
tions by  experience. 

In  this  way  Locke  proceeds  to  refer  the  origin  of  all  knowl- 
edge to  ideas,  which  constitute  our  experience.  It  may  seem 
that  he  is  trying  to  attain  to  practical  rather  than  to  scientific 
or  theoretical  ends.  But  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  deals 
shows  that  we  have  here,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  the  con- 
cept of  experience  fully  developed.  Besides  differentiating 
primary  from  secondary  qualities  of  things,  another  merit  of  his 
was  also  the  profound  insight  into  the  nature  of  general  ideas 
and  the  connection  between  them  and  language,  a  result  also  of 
the  development  of  the  concept  of  experience.  Let  us  see  how 
he  does  it. 

The  faculty  of  abstraction  and  the  general  ideas  arising 
from  it  are  proper  to  man  alone  and  form  the  true  nature  of  his 
reason.  Abstraction  is  the  faculty  of  generalizing  under  a  cer- 
tain name  the  ideas  received  from  individual  things.  Every- 
thing that  has  to  do  with  the  real  existence  of  these  single 
things,  such  as  time  and  place  and  other  concomitant  qualities, 
must  be  separated,  and  the  idea  alone  presented  to  the  under- 
standing apart  and  made  applicable,  under  a  particular  name, 
to  all  the  things  in  which  it  is  met.      The  same  color  which 


25 

I  perceive  in  milk,  in  snow  and  in  other  objects  l>ecomes, 
under  the  name,  white;  in  general,  an  idea  for  the  color  of  all 
things  which  produce  it  at  any  time.  But  the  origin  of  all 
general  ideas  is  to  be  found  in  sensible  perceptions.^  The 
simple  ideas  thence  derived  cannot  be  defined.  Xo  explana- 
tion will  convey  any  idea  to  the  blind.  Words  cannot  help, 
for  they  are  only  sounds.  To  endeavor  with  words  to  make 
any  one  who  has  not  had  the  experience  of  the  sensations 
realize  the  taste  of  an  apple,  or  its  red  and  white  color,  is  the 
same  as  trying  to  make  sound  visible  and  color  audible,  or  rather 
to  make  hearing  a  substitute  for  all  «)ther  senses.  All  imma- 
terial ideas  are  originally  taken  by  metaphor  from  ideas  of 
sensible  perception.!  When  Locke  says:  ''What  a  vast  variety 
of  different  ideas  does  the  word  triuniphus  hold  together  and 
deliver  to  us  as  one  species,"^  he  refers  to  the  fact  that  it 
includes  the  utmost  variety  of  objects,  furnished  by  the  wid- 
est experience. 

Having  now^  followed  up  Locke's  development  and  expo- 
sition of  the  concept  of  experience,  it  may  not  be  out  of  place 
to  note  the  essentials  and  limitations  in  his  theory. 

To  the  essential  and  novel  additions  to  philosophic  thought 
belong  the  following  truths : 

1.  The  conception  that  general  ideas  are  true  objects  of 
thought  and  that  they  are  perfected  in  men  by  abstraction  is 
an  intimation  that  there  is  a  connection  between  them  and 
language ;  the  statement  of  the  problem  as  to  the  origin  of  true 
ideas  and  the  tracing  them  back  to  sensible  impressions  is  the 
indication  of  the  connection  between  sense  and  reason. 

2.  Since  all  our  ideas  and  thoughts  proceed  from  indi- 
vidual perception  or  contact  with  the  external  world,  the  idea 
of  substance  is  inaccessible  to  human  knowledge. 


*  Essay,  Book  II,  Chap.  II. 

t  Essay,  Book  III,  Chaps.  Ill  and  IV. 

X  Essay,  Book  III,  Chap.  V. 


26 

3.  The  distinction  between  our  sensible  impressions  and 
the  true  qualities  of  objects — between  primary  and  secondary 
qualities — points  to  a  future  limitation  of  our  knowledge  to 
objects  of  experience. 

The  necessary  limitation  of  all  knowledge  follows : 

1.  The  hesitation  of  Locke  between  individualism  pure 
and  simple,  which  can  only  conceive  things  as  they  are  given 
by  senses  and  imagination  and  can  therefore  never  go  beyond 
its  subjective  standpoint,  and  the  assumption  of  an  objective 
world  actually  existing  in  itself  in  space  and  time^  is  apparent 
throughout  his  argument. 

2.  This  indecision  prevented  Locke  from  entering  upon  a 
more  thorough  investigation  of  the  nature  of  reason,  and 
from  showing  what  nature  and  characteristics  have  grown 
up  and  been  developed  through  the  reception  of  sense  impres- 
sions. To  Locke  the  mind  appears  as  originally  a  dark  room, 
into  which  rays  of  light  from  the  outer  world  penetrate  by 
certain  rifts  and  cracks,  and  so  increase  and  complete  the  think- 
ing faculty.  The  active  side  of  this  faculty,  how^ever,  is  much 
neglected  and  often  entirely  overlooked.  ■ 

3.  Thus  the  whole  function  of  thought  and  rational  knowl- 
edge appears  as  a  process  affected  from  and  by  the  world  of 
sense  without.  In  representing  the  law  of  causality  as  a  product 
of  experience,  Locke  suggested  Hume's  doubt  and  gave  rise  to 
the  profound  investigations  of  Kant. 

4.  Locke's  profound  and  important  view  that  general  ideas 
are  true  objects  of  thought  was  not  as  much  utilized  and  de- 
veloped by  him  as  the  importance  of  the  subject  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  principle  allowed  and  required.     It  was  necessary, 


*  I,  as  an  individual,  am  fixed  and  determined  as  the  subject  of  knowl- 
edge, and  it  is  impossible  that  I  should  know  the  finite  object  in  itself,  much 
less  the  infinite.  I  can  only  know  either  of  these  indirectly,  in  so  far  as 
they  come  within  the  range  of  my  consciousness,  in  so  far  as  they  are  repre- 
sented in  my  sensations  and  my  thoughts.  Schopenhauer,  World  as  will  and 
idea.     Book  I,  Chap.  V. 


27 

and  he  himself  held  it  to  be  the  chief  task  of  philosophy,  to  ex- 
amine carefully  into  the  origin  of  ideas  not  from  sense-percep- 
tion and  self -observation  alone;  the  origin  of  ideas  from  pre- 
ceding ideas  as  revealed  in  the  history  of  human  language 
should  have  been  set  forth,  too.  It  is  true  that  in  the  age  of 
Locke  such  an  undertaking  would  have  been  difficult,  as  the 
Science  of  Language  did  not  yet  exist.  Otherwise  Locke  would 
have  had  to  surrender  his  erroneous  belief  that  man  can  form 
ideas  from  words  which  are  only  the  conventional  signs  for  ideas 
already  existing  in  thought.* 

Clearer  knoAvledge  on  this  point  would  have  enabled  Locke 
to  deiine  the  concepts  of  thought  and  of  ideas  far  more  sharply, 
and  he  would  not  then  have  ascribed  to  mere  sense  impressions 
the  character  and  value  of  ideas.  "It  is  certain  that  the  mind 
is  able  to  retain  and  receive  distinct  ideas  long  before  it  has 
the  use  of  Avords,  or  before  it  comes  to  that,  which  we  commonly 
call  the  use  of  reason.  For  a  child  knows  as  certainly,  before 
it  can  speak,  the  difference  between  the  ideas  of  sweet  and  bitter, 
as  it  knows  afterwards  that  wormwood  and  sugar  plums  are 
not  the  same  thing. ''f  Schopenhauer  clearly  refutes  Locke 
that  ideas  are  originated  in  partibus  orationis  when  he  says: 
"It  is  very  surprising  that  no  philosopher  has  yet  traced  all  the 
various  manifestations  of  reason  back  to  one  simple  function, 
which  might  be  recognized  in  them  all,  by  which  they  might 
all  be  explained  and  which  would  therefore  be  seen  to  constitute 
the  proper  inner  nature  of  reason.  The  admirable  Locke,  in- 
deed, describes  abstract  universal  ideas  quite  rightly  as  marking 
the  distinction  between  man  and  beast,  and  Leibnitz  repeats 
this  with  complete  assent.  But  when  Locke  comes,  in  his  fourth 
book,  to  examine  reason  itself,  he  loses  sight  of  this  chief  char- 
acteristic altogether,  and  falls  into  a  hesitating,  indefinite,  frag- 
mentary expression  of  incomplete  and  second  hand  opinion."! 

*  Max  Mueller,  Lectures  on  Science  of  Language  II,  P.  75. 

t  Essay,  Book  I,  Chap.  I, 

t  Schopenhauer,  Welt  als  WUle  und  Vorstellung,  Pp.  45,  566-70. 


28 

At  the  same  time  Locke's  concept  of  experience  as  a  source 
of  ideas  has  an  important  bearing  on  the  future  philosophy, 
and  this  is  duly  recognized  by  Schopenhauer  in  the  following 
passage:  "Locke  was  the  first  to  proclaim  the  great  doctrine 
that  a  philosopher  who  wishes  to  prove  or  derive  anything 
from  ideas  must  first  investigate  the  origin  of  these  ideas 
as  to  their  content,  and  everything  thence  deducible  must  be 
determined  by  their  origin  as  the  source  of  all  knowledge  obtain- 
able through  them."* 

In  his  discussion  of  the  theory  of  experience  Locke  had 
shown  that  certain  qualities  considered  objective  were  due  to 
the  mind,  but  he  still  retained  certain  primary  qualities  which, 
while  stamped  upon  the  mind,  are  also  present  in  the  objects. 
Hume,  although  adopting  Locke's  theory  of  the  concept  of  expe- 
rience, brushes  away  the  remaining  cobwebs  of  dogmatism  in 
his  theory  and  carries  it  to  its  extreme  conclusion  by  denying 
the  possibility  of  anything  which  is  not  sensuous  experience  or 
derived  from  it.  Every  possible  object  of  knowdedge  he  reduced 
either  to  an  impression  or  an  idea.  "The  difference  between 
these  consists  in  the  degree  of  force  and  liveliness  with  which 
they  strike  upon  the  mind,  and  make  their  way  into  our  thought 
or  consciousness.  Those  perceptions,  which  enter  with  most 
force  and  violence,  we  may  name  impressioyis ;  and  under  this 
name  I  comprehend,  Hume  says,  all  our  sensations,  passions 
and  emotions,  as  they  make  their  first  appearance  in  the  soul." 
"By  ideas  I  mean  the  faint  image  of  these  in  thinking  and 
reasoning;  such  as,  for  instance,  are  all  the  perceptions  excited 
by  the  present  discourse,  excepting  only  those  which  arise  from 
the  sight  and  touch,  and  excepting  the  immediate  pleasure  or 
uneasiness  it  may  occasion."t 


*  Schopenhauer,  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellimg,  P.  570, 
t  Hume,  Treatise  of  the  Human  Nature,  Book  I,  Part  I,  L. 


29 

Hume  reaffirms  Locke's  theory  of  simple  and  complex 
ideas  and  the  fact  that  they  are  ultimately  traced  to  single 
perceptions.  These  impressions  and  ideas  are  the  sole  contents 
of  the  human  mind.  And  if  we  are  to  establish  the  reality  of 
a  fact,  we  must  be  able  to  trace  it  back  to  a  concrete  impression, 
which  it  reproduces.  Xo  matter  how  much  we  may  try  to  fix 
our  attention  out  of  ourselves,  we  never  really  can  advance  a 
step  beyond  ourselves,  nor  can  we  conceive  any  kind  of  exist- 
ence but  those  perceptions  which  have  appeared  in  that  narrow 
compass. 

On  this  ground  Hume  denies  the  existence  of  substance, 
or  rather  the  fact  that' we  can  have  any  knowledge  of  it,  if  it 
exists  at  all.  We  cannot  form  any  idea  about  it,  because  it  is 
not  given  to  us  through  sense-impression.  It  cannot  be  derived 
from  reflection,  because  impressions  of  reflection  resolve  them- 
selves into  our  passions  and  emotions,  none  of  which  can  possi- 
bly represent  a  substance. 

The  idea  of  substance,  therefore,  it  nothing  but  a  collection 
of  simple  ideas  of  qualities  that  are  united  by  the  imagination.* 
He  not  only  denies  the  existence  of  the  material  substance,  but 
also  of  the  spiritual  substance,  the  self,  because  we  cannot  get 
an  idea  of  it  from  sensuous  impressions.  Hume  says,  that, 
when  he  enters  most  intimately  into  what  he  calls  himself, 
he  always  stumbles  on  some  particular  perception  or  other,  of 
heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade,  love  or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure, 
but  never  can  catch  himself  at  any  time  without  a  perception 
and  never  can  observe  anything  but  the  perception. 

His  most  important  contribution  to  philosophy  was  the 
analysis  of  the  idea  of  causality.  There  seems  to  be  an  all-per- 
vading relation  which  stands  between  ideas  and  our  self,  thai; 
makes  knowledge  possible,  namely,  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect.     Here  again  he  demands:  what  is  the  impression  from 


*  Book  I,  Part  I,  6. 


30 

which  the  idea  of  cause  is  derived  ?^  An  impinging  ball  will 
cause  the  motion  in  the  other,  but  we  cannot  perceive  any  other 
causal  relation  between  the  action  of  the  ball  and  our  mind. 
We  find  such  relations  present  as  contiguity  and  succession  and 
from  these  perhaps  the  idea  of  relation  must  be  derived.  But 
these  do  not  exhaust  causation,  for  an  idea  may  be  contiguous 
and  prior  to  another  without  being  considered  as  its  cause. 
We  may  now  add  the  idea  of  necessary  connection.  But  then 
where  is  the  impression  from  which  this  idea  can  be  derived? 
Hume,  therefore,  throws  out  the  idea  of  necessity  and  with 
it  the  idea  of  causality.  We  can  only  get  knowledge  of  things 
that  are  given  us  in  our  sensuous  experience.  The  question 
now  is:  Since  there  is  no  causal  relation  and  everything  is  in 
constant  flux,  how  do  we  come  to  imagine  that  we  have  things 
before  us,  and  that  they  affect  each  other?  How  do  we  know 
that  a  chair  is  not  a  table  ?  Hume  ansv/ers,  that  it  is  due  to  our 
hahit  of  constantly  associating  certain  ideas  with  the  various 
impressions,  and  thereby  we  are  enabled  to  recognize  the  ob- 
jects on  account  of  their  similarity  to  those  ideas  arrived  at 
during  past  experiences.  The  relation  then  that  stands  be- 
tween us  and  the  world  is  the  constant  conjunction  of  ideas, 
the  force  of  custom  or  habit. 

Hume  comes  then  to  the  conclusion,  (1)  that  the  basis  of  all 
knowledge  is  an  experience  w^hich  contains  no  a  priori  factors 
(to  use  Kant's  expression),  but  is  solely  impression,  and  (2) 
that  he  must  consequently  deny  the  existence  of  ideas  such  as 
substance  and  causality,  as  they  are  extra-experiential  and  there- 
fore unwarranted. 

The  influence  that  Hume  exerted  on  Kant  is  evident  from 
the  following: 

(1)  The  negation  of  the  idea  of  the  self  and  the  idea  of 
causality  and  the  attributing  of  these  ideas  to  habit  aroused 
Kant  from  his  dogmatic  slumber. 


*  Book  I,  Part  III,  2. 


31 

(2)  Hume's  consistency  in  denying  in  his  account  of  ex- 
perience the  objective  existence  of  substance  and  causality 
aroused  in  Kant  the  need  of  supplementing  that  account  and 
deriving  substance  and  causality  from  non-empirical  sources.'^' 
These  destructive  criticisms  in  the  theory  of  Hume  make  him 
the  proper  stepping  stone  to  Kant's  philosophy. 


VI. 

This  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of  Kant's  concept  of  ex- 
perience. He  treats  the  concept  of  experience  manifestly  in  a 
different  wav  from  Locke. 

''All  knowledge,  he  avers,  begins  with  experience,  but  not 
all  knowledge  springs  from  experience."t  (Locke  had  said, 
all  knowledge  springs  from  experience.)  In  this  sentence  the 
concept  of  experience  manifests  itself  as  the  problem,  the  solu- 
tion of  which  is  the  business  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 
Kant  discovered,  as  it  were,  a  new  phase  of  the  concept  of  ex- 
perience, one  w^hich  Locke  and  Hume  had  denied.  And  it  de- 
pends solely  upon  the  precise  form  and  content  of  this  concept, 
that  he  should  reconcile  the  legitimate  demands  of  the  sceptical 
Empiricism  and  the  dogmatism  of  Pure  Eeason. 

Experience,  to  him,  is  a  continuous  combination  of  sensu- 
ous intuitions — a  synthesis  by  the  understanding,  which  elabo- 
rates the  raw  material  of  sensation,  ^ow,  by  abstracting 
the  work  of  the  understanding  from  this  concept,  there  re- 
mains sensation.  In  studying  the  component  parts  of  sen- 
sation, Kant  found  it  to  consist  of  a  material  and  formal 
element.  There  are  sensations,  such  as  color,  tone,  etc., 
but  they  appear  in  certain  forms.  These  forms  are  those 
of  space  and  time.     These  formal  elements,  however,  are  both 


*  Kant,  Prolegomena,  Preface. 

t  Intro.,  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  I. 


32 

pure  intuitions,  a  priori,  and  not  derived  from  experience, 
for  experience  will  show  us  that  space  and  time  exist,  but  it 
will  never  show  us  that  these  are  a  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  in- 
tuition. Experience  tells  us,  indeed,  that  something  is,  but  not 
that  it  must  necessarily  be  so  and  not  otherwise.*  Space  and 
time  cannot  be  removed  from  external  objects  or  events,  for  in 
order  to  gain  the  impression  of  the  external  Avorld,  we  must 
have  the  intuition  of  space  and  time  as  a  conditio  sine  qua  non. 
It  would  be  a  wrong  experience  from  which  space  and  time  are 
borrowed.  Ko  experience  is  sufficient  to  give  us  space  and 
time,  which  are  the  formal  elements  of  all  sensations.  These 
forms  can  be  compared  with  a  sort  of  colored  spectacles,  through 
which  we  must  look  all  the  time,  in  order  to  get  hold  of  the 
world  around  us.  Without  them  we  would  be  totally  blind. 
Space  and  time,  then,  are  given  to  us  as  a  priori  forms  of  all 
intuitions. 

The  second  half  of  the  sentence,  as  quoted  above,  begins 
with  a  "but";  ^'hut  not  all  knowledge  springs  from  experi- 
ence." The  significance  of  this  is  apparent,  for  there  is  a  mani- 
fest difference  between  begin  and  spring.  All  knowledge  begins 
in  relation  to  space  and  time.  There  is  only  a  nporepov  or 
"(Ttepov  rpos  T/fAcis  but  no  npoTepov  aTtXcos-  Here  Kant's  ac- 
count of  experience  differentiates  itself  in  a  very  marked  degree 
from  that  of  Locke.  There  may  be  a  more  or  less  complicated 
cause  of  knowledge.  And  this  cause  can  only  be  in  the  suc- 
cession of  my  experience  as  it  is  synthesized  by  the  mind.  The 
causal  nexus  is  not  a  mere  association,  as  Hume  had  affirmed. 
So  that,  while  all  knowledge  begins  necessarily  with  associa- 
tions of  sensuous  intuitions,  we  may  find  an  heterogeneous 
arrangement  in  mere  association  and  no  intelligible  knowledge 
as  yet.  The  additional  aspect  of  transformation  necessary  we 
shall  consider  presently. 


*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Intro.,  Part  111. 


33 

The  sensuous  intuitions  of  space  and  time, — which  are  a 
priori  forms, — constitute  the  passive  receptivity  of  the  mind. 
All  phenomena  are  put  into  these  forms.  This  form  of  expe- 
rience alone,  however,  conveys  no  intelligent  knowledge.  It  is 
the  combination  of  this  given  material  with  the  spontaneous 
activity  of  the  understanding,  elaboriiting  these  intuitions  by 
its  categories  or  laws  that  produce  experience,  from  which 
knowledge  springs.  One  factor  in  the  make-up  of  experience 
without  the  other  is  of  no  value;  both  factors  are  necessary. 
This  he  particularly  illustrates  in  the  sentence:  "Thoughts 
without  contents  (sensuous  intuitions)  are  empty,  intuitions 
without  concepts  are  blind."*  Without  either  of  these,  thoughts 
would  be  meaningless  and  knowledge  impossible.  The  under- 
standing can  perceive  nothing  and  the  sense  can  think  nothing. 
All  sensations  depend  upon  affections  of  the  senses  and  all  con- 
cepts upon  the  functioning  understanding.  From  the  work  of 
the  understanding  through  its  categories  upon  the  intuitions 
does  experience  arise.  The  a  priori  forms  of  the  mind  thus 
become  the  root  of  our  knowledge  and  the  universal  and  neces- 
sary in  the  world  depend  upon  this  factor  of  experience  (which 
is  itself  not  derived  from  experience).  In  this  way  experience 
loses  its  old  meaning  in  the  sense  of  Locke  (tabula  rasa; 
passivity).  "Experience,  therefore,  is  produced  by  the  under- 
standing out  of  the  raw  materials  of  sensation. t  In  this  sen- 
tence we  have  both  sources  of  experience,  its  beginning  in  sensa- 
tion and  its  springing  from  understanding.  Through  the  first 
process  of  external  experience,  objects  are  given  to  us,  through 
the  second  process  of  inner  experience  objects  are  knowTi  by  us. 
Intuitions  and  understanding  supplement  each  other  in  the 
formation  of  experience.  The  inchoate  matter  of  feeling  given 
through  sense  perception  receives  its  form  from  the  a  priori 
concepts   of  the  understanding,   and   the   world   of   conscious 


*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  P.  41,  Muellers  Trans. 

t  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  Analytic,  passim. 


34 

experience  arises.  True  cognition  a  priori  therefore  implies 
experience  in  order  to  be  of  any  value  at  all,  while  experience 
in  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  and  universal  (in  other  words  ob- 
jectively valid)  implies  cognition  a  priori.  In  this  way  Kant 
reconciles  Eationalism  and  Empiricism.  The  activity  of  the 
mind  is  exerted  validly  only  upon  experience,  and  experience 
is  possible  only  by  means  of  a  system  of  pure  conceptions,  con- 
ditioned by  an  a  priori  unity,  or,  in  other  words,  through  pure 
reason. 

"Now  to  develop  some  of  the  above  points  in  detail,  Kant's 
theory  of  knowledge  falls  into  three  divisions. 

1.  The  transcendental  aesthetic,  dealing  with  sensibility, 
the  receptive  element,  which  intuites  the,  as  yet,  blind  matter 
of  sensation  under  the  forms  of  space  and  time ; 

2.  The  transcendental  analytic,  treating  of  the  under- 
standing, the  active  element,  which  contributes  to  the  material 
furnished  by  sense,  its  own  categories  or  conceptions; 

3.  The  transcendental  dialetic,  concerning  itself  with  the 
Pure  Reason,  which  through  its  ideas  tries  to  extend  the  con- 
ditioned, actual  experience,  attained  by  means  of  the  senses  and 
the  understanding. 

At  the  outset  let  us  say,  that  Kant  in  speaking  of  the 
understanding,  alludes  to  it  as  the  unity  of  the  functions  of  the 
mind.  The  function  of  the  understanding  is  to  construct  ex- 
perience or  cognitions  out  of  intuitions.  This  it  effects  by  im- 
posing upon  them  its  pure  conceptions,  the  categories,  or,  in 
Kant's  own  language,  subsuming  the  forms  containing  the  per- 
ceptions (viz^  SPACE  AXD  time)  uudcr  these.  Perception, 
he  says,  which  is  purely  subjective,  merely  presupposes  the 
primitive  unity  of  the  consciousness  together  with  the  laws  of 
the  connection  of  perceptions  therein.  Knowledge,  cognition 
or  experience,  on  the  contrary,  which  passes  beyond  the  mere 
subjective  connection  of  sensations,  ascribing  objective  reality 


35 

and  a  definite  objective  order  to  the  presentations  contained  in 
them,  presupposes  the  categories. 

The  first  part  of  the  Critique  giving  us  formal  conditions 
of  sense-experience,  was  spoken  of  above.  The  second  section, 
giving  us  the  categories  as  forms  of  thought,  we  will  now  dis- 
cuss. 

How  did  Kant  discover  the  categories  as  the  formal  condi- 
tions of  experience  ?  In  the  same  manner  in  which  he  recog- 
nized space  and  time  as  a  priori  forms  of  intuition;  in  remov- 
ing the  constitutive  elements,  which  we  put  into  objects,  from 
these  constituents,  which  form  the  material  part  of  experience. 
It  doubtless,  therefore,  appears  that  the  a  priorism  is  known 
through  reflection  upon  that  which  we  possess  in  experience. 
It  certainly  could  not  be  different,  for  the  first  sentence,  "All 
knowledge  begins  with  experience,''  shows  it  conclusively. 
When  Kant  asks,  "How  are  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  possi- 
ble ?"  he  answers  that  the  possibility  depends  upon  the  syn- 
thetic unity  which  we  put  into  the  things.  This  synthetic  unity 
manifests  itself  in  the  categories.  The  categories  are  to  be  un- 
derstood as  a  priori  from  a  three-fold  aspect,  namely:  (1)  they 
are  called  a  priori  as  concepts  of  the  understanding,  (2)  as 
such  they  are  separate  from  the  eleiQents  of  knowledge,  and 
(3)  after  intuitions  are  subsumed  under  them,  they  become 
forms  of  experience.  Thus  Kant  conceives  them  apart  from 
any  empirical  cognition  and  yet  claims  for  them  an  objective 
validity,  resting  this  claim,  as  above,  on  the  fact  that  it  is  only 
through  them  that  experience  in  what  concerns  the  forms  of 
thought  is  possible,  and  so  they  relate  a  priori  to  objects  of 
experience.* 

How,  then,  does  the  mind  transform  sense-experience  into 
knowledge  by  means  of  the  categories  ?  By  subsuming  the 
intuition  under  the  categories.    This  subsumption  occurs  in  the 


*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  Deduct,  of  the  Categories 
Section,  passim. 


36 

form  of  judgments.  Experience,  in  fact,  is  a  series  of  judg- 
ments. For  instance,  when  we  say.  This  is  red,  we  pronounce 
a  judgment.  There  are  certain  laws,  then,  which  prescribe  the 
course  which  the  categories  must  follow.  It  would  be  wrong 
to  say  that  this  red  color  is  long  or  short,  or  that  the  hardness 
of  the  table  lasts  five  minutes,  putting  it  in  relation  to  time.  In 
order  that  we  may  judge  intelligently  Ave  are  bound  to  adhere 
to  certain  rules  of  the  understanding,  e.  g.,  the  axioms  of  intui- 
tion, which  say,  that  all  phenomena  are,  with  reference  to  their 
intuition,  extensive  quantities;  anticipations  of  perception, 
which  say  that  the  principle  which  anticipates  all  perceptions 
as  such  is  this :  In  all  phenomena  sensation,  and  the  Real  which 
corresponds  to  it  in  the  object  (realitas  phsenomenon) ,  has  an 
intensive  quantity,  that  is,  a  degree ;  the  analogies  of  experience, 
the  general  principle  of  which  is:  All  phenomena,  as  far  as 
their  existence  is  concerned,  are  subject  a  priori  to  rules,  de- 
termining their  mutual  relation  in  one  and  the  same  time,  etc.* 

In  considering  the  elements  of  experience  we  found  that 
one  of  these  was  sensuous  intuition,  and  that  the  categories  had 
their  function  in  transforming  these  intuitions  into  knowledge. 
We  shall  also  find  that  for  us  the  categories  have  no  meaning 
unless  applied  either  to  sense  experience  or  to  possible  expe- 
rience. The  concepts  of  the  understanding,  to  repeat,  are  ap- 
plicable only  to  objects  of  sensible  intuition,  for  a  faculty  of 
non-sensible  or  intellectual  intuition  is  not  possessed  by  man. 
The  noumenon,  an  object  of  neither  sensible  nor  internal  per- 
ception, is  not  to  be  known  through  the  categories. 

While  it  is  outside  of  the  province  of  the  subject  to  con- 
sider the  noumenon,  still,  as  putting  a  limit  upon  our  knowl- 
edge, it  is  important  to  refer  to  it.  By  the  noumenon,  Kant 
means  (1)  the  unknown  substratum  of  experience,  a  substratum 
which  being  outside  of  space  and  time   (since  these  are  sub- 


*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  Analytic,  P.  136. 


37 

jective),  cannot,  therefore,  be  known;  (2)  ideas  which  the 
metaphysical  faculty  present  in  mankind,  has  assumed,  as  ulti- 
mate in  the  world, — ideas  which  since  they  are  not  verifiable  cr 
applicable  to  experience  cannot  be  kno\vn  by  the  categories  of 
knowledge.  These  ideas  are  the  soul,  the  world  as  a  totality, 
and  God. 

In  studying  the  philosophies  of  Locke,  Hume  and  Kant, 
we  saw  the  concept  of  experience  interpreted  in  a  twofold  man- 
ner. In  Locke  as  sensuous  intuition  and  in  Kant  as  a  product 
of  the  understanding  acting  upon  sensuous  intuition.  The 
latter  extended  Locke's  conception  of  experience  by  showing 
that  intuitions  are  not  yet  experience,  and  it  is  not  until  the 
activities  of  the  mind  develop  the  impressions  that  experience 
arises.  Kant,  in  the  words  of  Hegel,  would,  however,  be  an 
impossibility  without  Locke :  "Kant's  idealistische  Seite,  welche 
dem  Subjecte  gewisse  Verhaeltnisse,  die  Kategorien  heissen, 
vindiciert,  ist  nichts  als  die  Erweiterimg  des  Lockianismus."* 

The  foregoing  is  an  exposition  of  Kant's  concept  of  ex- 
perience, as  I  understand  it  to  be.  This  treatise  contains  the 
most  salient  features  of  his  doctrine  on  that  subject.  It  shall 
now  be  my  privilege  to  point  out  various  inconsistencies  and 
limitations  of  his  theory. 

1.  He  is  not  clear  on  the  point,  as  to  whether  his  cate- 
gories are  functions  or  activities,  or  whether  they  are  structural 
forms  of  the  mind.  As  Schopenhauer  points  out,  there  are 
passages  intended  to  be  elucidatory  in  which  the  distinction 
sought  to  be  established  is  so  wiredrawn  as  to  be  hardly  in- 
telligible. 

2.  Ueberwegt  and  VolkeltJ  rightly  object,  that  Kant 
in  excluding  the  formal  conditions  of  experience  from  the 
Ding-an-sich,  does  not  positively  prove  the  incognizability  of 


*  Kegels  Werke,  Vol.  I,  P.  31. 

t  Ueberweg,  Gesch.  der  Philosophic,  Bd.  Ill,  P.  185. 

t  Volkelt,  Kant's  Erkenntnisstheorie,  Pp.  40-50. 


38 

the  latter.  In  asserting  that  space  and  time,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  forms  of  sensibility,  cannot  obtain  in  objects  as  things-in- 
themselves,  he  is  assuming  a  dogmatic  attitude  with  regard  to 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  disputed  that  the  basis  of 
our  knowledge  is  a  space  and  time  of  our  own,  and  Kant  is 
right  in  saying  that  the  world  of  noumena  is  not  in  this  world 
of  space  and  time  (because  that  is  subjective). 

3.  Against  the  Critique  of  Pure  Keason,  as  undertaken 
by  Kant,  it  has  been  objected,  that  thought  can  only  be  scru- 
tinized by  thought,  and  that  to  seek  to  examine  the  nature  of 
thought  antecedent  to  all  real  thinking,  is  like  attempting  to 
swim  before  going  into  water.* 

4.  His  statement,  that  space  is  a  necessary  a  priori  notion, 
because  it  is  impossible  to  form  a  notion  of  non-existence  of 
space,  is  no  proof  of  its  being  a  priori. 

5.  Kant  has  not  sufficiently  justified  the  double  use, 
which  he  makes  of  space,  time  and  the  categories,  in  that  he 
treats  them,  on  the  one  hand,  as  mere  forms  or  ways  of  con- 
necting the  material  given  in  experience,  and  yet,  undeniably, 
on  the  other  hand,  also  treats  them  as  something  material,  viz. : 
as  the  matter  or  content  of  thought  from  which  we  form 
synthetic  judgments  a  priori. 

6.  That  space  is  only  the  form  of  the  external  and  not 
the  internal  sense,  and  that  time,  per  contra,  is  the  form  of 
the  internal,  and  indirectly,  also  of  the  external  sense,  are 
truths  to  be  inferred,  in  Kant's  opinion,  from  the  nature  of 
external  and  internal  experience.  But  in  fact  to  space  belong 
no  less,  "phenomena  of  internal  sense,"  images  of  perception 
as  such,  representations  of  memory,  conceptions,  in  so  far  as 
the  concrete  representations  from  which  they  are  abstracted 
constitute  their  inseparable  basis,  and  therefore  to  the  judg- 
ments combined  from  them,  in   so  far  as  that,  to  which  the 


*  Hegel,  Smaller  Logic,  Introduction. 


39 

judgment  relates,  is  also  intuitively  (through  the  sensibility) 
represented. 

VII. 

So  far  it  is  evident  that  both  Locke  and  Kant  agree  upon 
the  fact  that  experience  is  the  basis  of  knowledge.  But  knowl- 
edge of  what  ?  of  phenomena.  Locke  maintains  that  we  can 
know  objects  through  the  experience  of  our  senses  and  that 
knowledge  is  limited  to  objects  of  sense  only.  Kant  tells  us 
that  we  can  know  only  phenomena  and  that  the  knowledge  of 
them  is  valid  only  in  as  much  as  we  can  verify  it  in  an  actual 
or  a  possible  experience.  But  noumena,  things-in-themselves, 
we  cannot  know,  because  they  transcend  the  sphere  of  ex- 
perience. 

Hegel  and  Herbart,  however,  contend,  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  noumena  is  accessible  to  us  through  experience. 
In  this  fact  lies  their  importance.  The  concept  of  experience 
assumes  an  enlarged  aspect  in  the  theories  of  these  philosophers 
and  we  shall  now  proceed  to  consider  them  in  detail. 

Before  considering  these  we  must  turn  to  Fichte,  who  rep- 
resents the  extreme  development  of  Kantianism  on  the  sub- 
jective or  psychological  side. 

Fichte,  in  his  Science  of  Knowledge,  draws  forth  into 
light  the  concealed  mechanism  by  means  of  which  conscious- 
ness is  realized.  Plis  theory  rests  on  a  first  principle  in 
which  the  matter  and  the  form  of  knovvledge  so  condition  each 
other  that  that  principle  requires  no  other  to  condition  it  as 
regards  form  and  content.  There  are  two  aspects  to  conscious- 
ness, the  objective  or  empirical  and  the  subjective.  Kant  took 
up  the  analysis  of  experience  as  a  product  of  our  activities. 
But  what  about  the  process  of  the  mind  in  the  making  of  con- 
sciousness? Fichte  investigated  our  mode  of  action  in  the 
conscious  process. 

Beginning  then  with  the  subject,  Fichte  maintains,  that 


40 

the  Ego  first  posits  itself,  then  the  non-Ego  acts  on  the  Ego 
and  through  this  reciprocal  activity  consciousness  arises.  This 
is  a  state  or  form  plus  a  content  or  matter.  Neither  would  have 
a  meaning  without  the  other,  nor  could  knowledge  arise  with- 
out the  interaction  of  the  Ego  upon  the  non-Ego.  The  most 
primitive  act  he  assumes  to  be  that  by  which  the  unity  of  the 
subjective  and  objective  is  posited,  and  he  describes  this  in  his 
Eirst  Principle  as  follows :  The  Ego  posits  absolutely  its  being. 
He  requires  that  a  conception  be  thought,  and  then  that  we 
observe  not  what  one  does  when  one  thinks,  but  what  one  must 
do;  here  it  will  be  discovered  that  what  is  contained  in  thought, 
or,  rather,  precedes  it  as  a  conditio  sine  qua  non,  is  a  self- 
positing  or  self.*  The  essential  thing  is  that  the  absolute, 
not  individual,  Ego  be  conceived  as  a  pure  act  (not  as  some- 
thing active),  as  pure  or  absolute  knowledge  (neither  as  a  know- 
ing or  as  a  known  somewhat),  as  the  self -penetration,  for 
which  there  is  no  other  word  than  Ego-hood.  To  bring  to  con- 
sciousness this  Ego-hood  underlying  every  Ego  is  therefore 
something  entirely  different  from  mere  self -observation ;  it  is 
rather  an  intellectual  intuition  before  which  one's  own  being 
vanishes,  and  which  makes  its  appearance,  not  as  being,  but 
as  act. 

To  understand  the  foregoing  technical  accounts  of  Eichte, 
we  must  see  how  he  agreed  with  and  differed  from  Kant. 
Both  accepted  experience  as  the  subject  of  investigation.  But 
Kant  took  experience  as  an  organized  structure,  and  by  means 
of  analysis  attempted  to  arrive  at  the  universal  forms  which 
made  experience  possible.  Thus,  while  his  categories  were  a 
priori  forms  of  the  understanding,  they  were  discovered  em- 
pirically by  analysis.  Eichte,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not  take 
experience  for  granted  at  the  start,  but  only  the  existence  of 
the  self  or  Ego.     Thus,  he  said,  the  Ego  posits  itself,  meaning 


*  Fichte,  Science  of  Knowledge,  Part  II,  Section  1. 


41 

it  is  a  primary  fact.  Xow  what  does  this  imply?  That  the 
Ego  is  the  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  all  experience.  He  pro- 
ceeds from  this  self,  which  must  be  present  in  all  experience 
and  yet  not  be  limited  by  it.  We  have  said  before  that  ex- 
perience is  a  reciprocal  activity  between  the  self  and  the  con- 
tent, tliat  is  between  the  state,  as  such,  and  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness. This  constant  activity  then  suggests  Heraclitus' 
flux  of  things.  Xow  if  we  abstract  in  thought  from  this  active 
consciousness  the  form  or  state,  we  have,  what  Fichte  terms, 
the  absolute  self,  the  universal  Ego,  the  permanence  in  this 
flux.  If  we  say,  that  because  the  Ego  is  posited  by  itself,  it 
therefore  is,  we  abstract  the  Ego  from"  the  subject — object 
(the  thinking  individual).  This  constitutes  the  content  of  the 
law  of  thought.  Since  categories  are  laws  of  the  Ego,  valid 
only  so  far  as  they  apply  to  objects,  reality  is  given  to  an 
object  only  by  its  being  posited  by  the  Ego ;  i.e.,  thought  under 
the  laws  or  categories  of  the  Ego. 

The  Second  Principle  is  introduced  in  a  manner  entirely 
similar  to  that  in  which  the  Eirst  was  introduced,  that  is  to 
say,  originally  in  a  descriptive  form,  later  in  the  form  of  a 
postulate.  In  the  descriptive  form  it  runs  as  follows.  To  the 
Ego  is  opposed  the  non-Ego  (as  content  of  consciousness)  ;  in 
the  form  of  a  postulate  it  is  required  to  brinoj  the  original 
opposition  of  Ego  and  non-Ego  into  consciousness.  Although 
(iutside  of  u'liat  takes  place  by  the  positing  act,  nothing  new 
enters,  there  does  enter  something  new  as  regards  the  way  in 
which  it  takes  place.  Eichte  calls  the  act  itself,  and  likewise 
the  principle  that  formulates  it,  conditioned  as  regards  content 
and  unconditioned  as  regards  form.*  Just  for  that  reason,  also, 
is  the  product  of  this  act  designated  by  the  expression  non- 
Ego,  which  indicates  something  in  a  relation.  That  is,  the  Ego 
deals  with  a  content  that  stands  over  ajjainst  it.     At  the  same 


*  Fichte,  Science  of  Knowledge,  Part  III,  Section  IV 


42 

time  were  it  not  for  the  Ego,  that  content  wonld  not  exist.  The 
content  Fichte  calls  the  non-Ego.  As  the  fact  of  its  existence 
is  dependent  upon  the  Ego,  he  calls  the  non-Ego  conditioned 
in  form  by  the  Ego  and  unconditioned  in  its  matter,'  because 
the  Ego  finds  a  certain  opposition  between  itself  and  the  non- 
Ego,  an  opposition  not  due  to  a  difference  of  form  between  the 
self  and  the  not-self. 

If  these  two  postulates  (the  posited  Ego  and  the  non-Ego) 
are  granted,  the  Third,  the  combination  of  the  two,  follows  of 
i1;self,  without,  however,  the  identity  of  consciousness  being  lost 
sight  of.  Since  these  two  annul  each  other,  the  act  which  shall 
combine  the  positing  of  the  Ego  and  its  opposite  the  (non-Ego) 
must  consist  in  a  reciprocal  partial  negation  or  limitation  of 
each  by  the  other. 

If,  therefore,  the  postulate  of  this  partial  negation  be 
carried  into  effect,  there  results  an  act  which  Fichte  describes 
thus:  There  is  a  reciprocal  activity  between  the  Ego  and  non- 
Ego,  both  uniting  into  an  active  consciousness  (the  subject- 
objectivity).  This  consciousness,  therefore,  involves  a  duality 
— best  expressed  in  the  German  Urtheil — a  state  or  form  on 
the  one  hand,  a  content  on  the  other,  and  a  consequent  syn- 
thesis of  this  duality  forming  a  unity  of  an  active  conscious- 
ness, with  a  content  therein.  The  First  Principle  of  Fichte, 
therefore,  is  analogous  to  the  thinker,  who  is  unconditioned  by 
the  content, — the  object.  The  Second  Principle  is  analogous 
to  thought,  which  is  limited  partially  by  the  thinker  and. 
partially  by  the  object.  And  the  Third  Principle  is  analogous 
to  consciousness, — of  which  the  other  two  phases  are  only  ab- 
stractions, which  can  only  arise  when  the  thinker  actually 
thinks  and  purposely  wants  to  know  something.  And  with  it 
the  circle  of  possible  principles  is  exhausted.  Reflection  upon 
the  form  of  this  principle  should  yield  first  the  laAv  of  thought 
of  the  Ground;  and  because  Ground  (of  relation  and  distinc- 
tion) lies  only  in  the  partial  coincidence  and  falling  asunder. 


43 

there  results,  further,  from  this  Principle,  the  third  qualita- 
tive category:  Determination.  But,  at  the  same  time, — ^be- 
cause ^'partial"  is  a  quantitative  conception, — the  categories 
of  quantity  are  therewith  known  in  their  proper  source. 

These  three  Principles  are  related  to  each  other  as  thesis, 
antithesis  and  synthesis,  and  are  at  the  foundation  of  the  entire 
investigation.  Knowledge  arises  from  ideas  of  individual  con- 
sciousness. In  contrast  with  those  ideas,  which  may  come  and 
go  in  an  involuntary  and  contingent  manner,  there  maintain 
themselves  other  sets  of  ideas,  and  these  latter  are  characterized 
by  a  ^'feeling  of  necessity"  that  can  be  distinguished  with  entire 
certainty.  That  is  to  say,  we  get  notions  fleeting  and  passing  by 
us,  without  any  desire  on  our  part  to  reflect  upon  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  ideas  which  arise  with  a  distinct  pur- 
pose, with  a  desire  on  our  part  to  examine  them.  The  thinker 
expressly  and  purposely  wants  to  compare  and  distinguish  them. 
These  ideas  are  contents  of  an  active  consciousnes.  They  arc 
manifestly  different  from  the  states  of  consciousness  as  such,  but 
they  influence  these  states.  They  are  the  non-Ego,  something 
other  than  the  Ego,  and  by  the  reciprocal  activity  of  this  Ego 
and  the  non-Ego,  knowledge  arises.  Eichte  calls  this  system  of 
the  ideas  which  emerge  with  a  "purpose"  or  a  "feeling  of  neces- 
sity" EXPERiEXCE.  He  thus  shows,  like  Kant,  that  expe- 
rience is  a  synthesis  of  form  (Ego)  and  content  (non-Ego). 
The  forms  or  categories  of  the  Ego,  however,  are  not  assumed,  but 
derived  in  the  dialectic  movement  by  which  the  abstract  Ego 
and  the  abstract  non-Ego  are  synthesized  into  concrete  con- 
sciousness. 

VIII. 

Hegel  signifies  in  the  main  a  return  from  Schelling  to 
Eichte,  a  giving  up  of  the  thought  that  the  living  wealth  of  the 
world  can  be  derived  or  deduced  from  the  "IS^othing"  or  abso- 
lute indifference,  and  the  attempt  to  raise  this  empty  substance 


44 

again  to  spirit, — to  the  self-determined  subject.^  Thus,  while 
Hegel  goes  back  to  the  Fichtian  idea  of  experience  as  synthesis 
of  Ego  and  non-Ego,  the  Ego  with  him  is  not  the  individual 
Ego,  but  that  of  the  Absolute.  The  categories  are  derived  from 
"absolute  experience."  The  w^orld  with  its  categories  is  the 
self-unfolding  of  absolute  experience.  Such  knowledge,  how- 
ever, cannot  have  the  form  of  intuition  or  immediate  perception 
(Anschauung),  which  Schelling  had  claimed  for  the  Ego  or  the 
Absolute,  but  only  that  of  the  conception  or  notion  (Begriff). 
If  all  that  is  real  or  actual  is  the  manifestation  of  spirit  or  mind, 
then  logic  has  to  develop  the  creative  self-movement  of  spirit 
as  a  dialectical  necessity.  The  conceptions,  of  Avhich  mind 
or  spirit  takes  part  and  analyzes  its  own  content,  are  the  cate- 
gories of  reality,  the  forms  of  the  cosmic  life ;  and  the  task  of 
philosophy  is  not  to  describe  this  realm  of  forms  as  a  given 
manifold,  but  to  comprehend  them  as  moments  of  a  single 
unitary  development.  The  dialectical  method,  therefore,  serves, 
with  Hegel,  to  determine  the  essential  nature  of  particular 
phenomena  by  the  significance  which  they  have  as  members  or 
links  in  the  self -unfolding  of  the  spirit.  He  works  this  problem 
out  in  the  scheme  of  the  dialectic  trinity  of  Positing,  ^N^egation 
and  Reconciliation.  All  conceptions,  with  which  the  human 
mind  has  ever  thought  reality  or  its  particular  groups,  are 
woven  together  into  a  unified  system.  Each  retains  its  assigned 
place,  in  which  its  necessity,  its  relative  justification,  is  said  to 
become  manifest.  But  each  proves  by  this  same  treatment  to 
be  only  a  moment  or  factor  which  receives  its  true  value  only 
when  it  has  been  put  in  connection  with  the  rest  and  introduced 
into  the  whole.  Antitheses  and  contradictions  of  conceptions 
belong  to  the  nature  of  the  mind  itself,  and  this  also  to  the 
essential  nature  of  the  reality  which  unfolds  itself  from  it, 
and  their  truth  consists  just  in  the  systematic  connection  in 
which  the  categories  follow  from  one  another. 
*  Hegel,  Phaenomenologie,  Voir.  W.  II,  14. 


45 

Hegel  thus  also  makes  use  of  an  inner  experience,  a  unity 
of  subject  and  object  in  an  active  consciousness,  but  he  ex- 
tends the  term  to  include  Absolute  Experience  or  the  Idea,  the 
highest  form  of  experience. 

IX. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  the  concept  of  experience  in 
three  different  phases.  Locke  demands  everywhere  a  sensuous 
experience  coming  from  objects,  that  make  their  impression 
upon  our  mind  through  the  medium  of  our  senses,  while  Hume 
does  the  same  thing  w^ithout  referring  the  sensuous  experience 
to  any  source  at  all. 

Kant  says:  "Xur  in  der  Erfahrung  ist  die  Wahrheit.*' 
But  his  experience  is  a  product  of  tiie  understanding.  The 
subject  becomes  conscious  of  this  cosmos  as  his  own  creation, 
he  gives  laws  to  its  forces,  and  attributes  properties  to  its  exist- 
ence. The  nature  of  the  thing-in-itself  is  unkno^vn  to  the  sub- 
ject, because  he  cannot  experience  it  through  the  medium  of 
the  understanding. 

Fichte  and  Hegel,  on  the  other  hand,  deduce  from  the 
unity  of  an  active,  purposive  mind  the  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  the  world. 

In  order  to  logically  conclude  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  concept  of  experience,  w^e  ought  to  take  into  account 
what  Herbart  teaches.  There  is  really  no  advance  to  be  re- 
corded, in  his  theory,  upon  the  preceding  thinkers.  He  studies 
experience  in  order  to  have  a  guide,  as  it  were,  which  is  to  lead 
him  to  absolute  truth;  while  other  philosophers  maintain  that 
experience  contains  the  root  of  truth  in  itself. 

We  start  and  must  start  from  experience,  says  Herbart, 
but  it  gives  us  no  immediate  knowledge.  It  becomes,  however, 
knowledge,  when  it  is  elaborated.  Experience  sets  tasks  to 
thought  in  as  much  as  the  sensations  which  w^e  experience  ar- 


46 

range  themselves  in  certain  forms  and  series.  And  in  compar 
ing  and  compiling  various  empirical  data  with  the  require- 
ments of  strict  Logic,  we  attain  to  knowledge.  For  experience 
is  full  of  mistakes  and  contradictions,  hence  it  is  necessary  to 
go  to  something  else  in  which  the  contradictions  should  be 
solved.  Every  sensation,  he  argues,  gives  us  an  appearance 
(Schein).  Every  appearance  necessarily  implies  Being  (Sein) 
— something  permanent,  which  is  the  cause  of  sensation.  The 
sensations  are  not  copies  of  things,  nor  do  they  afford  us  to  im- 
mediate knowledge  of  things,  but  they  inevitably  point  to  a 
Being,  an  absolute  position  within  them.  We  never  can  knov/ 
the  things-in-themselves  from  experience,  he  agrees  with  Kant, 
but  w^e  do  know  from  the  fact  that  v^e  have  experience,  that 
there  are  existences  as  causes  of  this  appearance.  And  from 
this  fact  he  also  deduces  the  theory,  that  experience  is  the 
object  and  foundation  of  knowledge.  The  mind  does  not  project 
knowledge,  is  not  set  over  against  experience,  but  the  latter 
must  be  given  first  before  the  mind  can  act.  It  is  impossible 
to  conceive  a  mind  transcending  experience.  But  experience 
shows  us  Becoming  and  change;  we  deal  with  appearances 
which  we  cannot  accept  at  their  face- value.  They  are  apt  to  be 
different  at  different  times.  Sound  is  heard  through  the  medium 
of  solids  or  liquids,  but  not  in  a  vaciium.  Color  is  not  seen 
at  night  as  well  as  in  the  daytime.  There  are  evidently  contra- 
dictions in  experience.  Amidst  all  this  change,  he  asks,  w^here 
is  the  permanence?  Our  task,  then,  is  to  find  behind  each 
appearance  the  underlying  Keal.  Because,  if  we  are  not  to 
look  for  some  permanent  truth,  we  are  apt  to  fall  into  absolute 
scepticism.  Since  experience  gives  us  many  appearances,  there 
must  also  be  many  Reals ;  "So  viel  Schein,  so  viel  Sein."* 

The  theory  of  the  Eeal  is  a  metaphysical  one.     Since  the 
Ego  is  a  Real,  we  ought  to  deal  with  it  in  Metaphysics,  but. 


*  Herbart,  Psychologie  als  Wissenschaft,  149,  note  2. 


47 

since  it  also  underlies  our  consciousness,  Herbart  deals  with  it 
in  his  Psychology.  As  a  Real  endowed  with  different  changing 
states  or  qualities,  it  involves  contradictions.  And  as  a  psy- 
chological problem,  we  must  consider  such  contradictions  as 
appear  in  the  ideality  of  the  subject-object  (of  Fichte).  The 
contradictions,  which  this  ideality  contains,  can  be  removed, 
when  we  think  the  Ego  as  the  permanent,  unchanging  Real 
behind  the  changing  appearance,  that  it  exposes  to  us  in  expe- 
rience. The  Ego  or  soul  possesses  certain  powers  and  activi- 
ties, and  these  are  nothing  else  than  the  force  of  self-preserva- 
tion. These  forces  are  variously  expressed  in  the  relation  of 
one  Real  to  other  Reals.  Thus,  a  Real,  by  virtue  of  the  force 
of  its  activity,  becomes  the  cause  of  the  activity  in  the  related 
Reals.  Conscious  experience  is  the  sum  total  of  these  active 
relations.  During  this  continuous  conflict  among  the  Reals  we 
experience  various  changes  in  the  (Schein)  appearance  of  the 
Reals.  And  what  in  Psychology  we  term  thinking,  feeling  and 
vvilling,  is  only  a  variety  of  appearances  of  the  self-preservation 
of  the  soul.  The  Real  itself  during  aii  these  activities  remains 
unchanged. 

Thus,  he  concludes,  that  Fichte's  ^'The  Ego  posits  itself' 
depends  upon  an  inner  experience  and  Heraclitus'  '^Eternal 
flux  in  things"  upon  external  experience,  but  either  position 
cannot  be  regarded  as  final.  As  a  result  of  this  experience, 
then,  he  brings  out  the  problem  of  manifoldness  of  existins: 
things  (Reals).  And  to  explain  this,  means  for  him  to  remove 
these  contradictions  in  experience.  ITence,  when  a  thing  is 
presented  in  experience  with  a  new  ijuality  which  it  did  not 
possess  before,  we  must,  if  we  are  to  explain  it,  go  beyond  the 
thing  itself  and  assume  the  existence  of  one  or  more  other 
Reals  with  which  our  perception  relates  it.  The  difference 
between  the  first  and  second  appearance  of  a  given  object  of 
experience  is  to  be  elucidated  by  comparing  it  with  another  ob- 
ject of  experience  itself  not  yet  changed.     Activitv  (which  is 


48 

also  change)  only  seems  to  occur  in  experience,  because  ^ve  re- 
late one  thing  to  another  thing  occurring  at  intervals  of  time. 
Thus,  the  conception  of  activity  forces  itself  into  consciousness 
with  experience. 

In  arguing  from  phenomena  (Schein)  to  Being  (Sein) 
Herbart  consistently  asserts  that  appearance  is  not  an  essential 
quality  of  Being,  but  that  every  true  explanation  of  the  sensu- 
ous world  must  exhibit  appearance  as  entirely  contingent  to 
Being.*  So  that,  while  each  particular  Real  is  independent  of 
all  others,  it  is  experience  that  changes  and  composes  qualities. 

It  is  outside  of  the  province  of  this  thesis  to  discuss  at  length 
the  nature  of  the  Reals.  One  idea  in  Herbart's  mind  we  must 
notice,  viz. :  that  Metaphysics  must  underlie  Psychology. 


X. 

In  an  exposition  of  this  kind  it  may  not  be  considered  out 
of  place  to  take  account  of  a  contemporary  doctrine  in  vogue ; — 
not  strictly  dealing  with  experience  as  treated  above.  The  whole 
doctrine  is  looking  upon  experience  not  as  theoretical,  but  as 
practical,  and  as  determining  our  attitude  not  only  to  knowledge, 
but  to  all  of  life. 

In  Kant  and  his  followers  we  have  a  most  intricate  analysis 
of  the  concept  of  experience.  But  after  the  task  is  completed 
w^e  have,  in  a  certain  sense,  made  no  further  progress  with  it 
than  with  the  Empiricist  account.  Herbart  rightly  says  that 
experience  contains  contradictions.  The  theoretical  exposition 
of  Kant,  as  pointed  out,  contains  more  tlian  one  difficulty.  Ulti- 
mate knowledge  practically  becomes  impossible  and  resolves 
itself  into  belief.  For  it  matters  not  now  intricate  the  process 
may  be,  which  gives  us  experience,  we  after  all  get  only  ideas 
and  not  knowledge  of  objects.     Our  contemporaries,  like  the 


*  Herbart,  Psychologie  als  Wissenschaft,  149,  note  2. 


49 

school  following  the  Dogmatists  of  old,  tire  of  these  subtleties, 
and  turn  to  Radical  Empiricism.  It  ie  the  tendency  towards 
what  has  been  lately  named  "Pragmatism,"  the  tendency, 
namely,  to  characterize  and  to  estimate  the  processes  of  thought 
in  terms  of  practical  categories,  and  to  criticise  knowledge  in 
the  light  of  its  bearings  upon  conduct,  or  rathej-  action  in  general. 
1  say  action,  because  the  word  practical  is  not  used  in  this 
doctrine  in  the  Kantian  sense  (as  used  in  the  term  "Practical 
Reason").  The  word  "praginatic,"  in  the  Kantian  sense,  is 
(in  the  sense  of  "having  a  practical  purpose"), — what  Pro- 
fessors James  and  Peirce  have  in  mind  when  they  speak  of 
"practical."  The  roots  of  this  doctrine  are  found  in  Fichte's 
philosophy,  which  is  a  deliberate  synthesis  of  pragmatism  with 
absolutism.  Hegel  made  the  question  a  fundamental  one  in 
various  places  in  his  Logic.  In  the  Phaenomenolgie,  the 
romantic  biography  of  the  Weltgeist,  we  find  the  principal 
crises  due  to  the  conflicts  of  the  theoretical  with  the  practical 
interests.  And  James,  in  our  times,  by  assuming  that  the  end 
of  man  is  action,  fairly  describes  the  utilitarian  spirit  of 
Americans  of  to-day. 

Peirce  speaks  of  Pragmatism  in  the  following  manner: 
"Consider  what  effects  that  might  conceivably  have  practical 
bearings,  we  conceive  the  object  of  our  conception  to  have. 
Then,  our  conception  of  these  effects  is  the  whole  of  our  concep- 
tion of  the  object."  James  maintains  that  Pragmatism  is  the 
"doctrine  that  the  whole  'meaning'  of  a  conception  expresses 
itself  in  practical  consequences,"  either  conduct  to  be  recom- 
mended or  experiences  to  be  expected,  if  the  conception  be  true, 
which  would  be  different  if  it  were  untrue.* 

Pragmatism,  then,  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  there  is  an 
organic  connection  between  thought  and  action,  and  this  connec- 
tion manifests  itself  in  a  concrete  rather  than  in  an  abstract 


*  Baldwin,  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psycholog}',  article  Pragmatism. 


50 

fashion.  For  we  must  admit  that  each  different  notion  tends  to 
produce  a  different  act,  and  the  best  method  of  discussing 
points  of  theory  is  to  begin  by  ascertaining  what  practical  dif- 
ferences would  result  if  one  alternative  or  the  other  were  true. 
What  is  the  cash  value  of  a  particular  truth  in  terms  of  par- 
ticular concrete  experience?  This  illustrates  the  position  of 
Hume.  Peirce  summarizes  his  own  position  thus:  ^Thought 
in  movement  has  for  its  only  conceivable  motive  the  attainment 
of  belief,  or  thought  at  rest.  Only  when  our  thought  about  an 
object  has  found  its  rest  in  belief  can  our  action  on  the  subject 
firmly  and  safely  begin.  Beliefs,  in  short,  are  rules  for  action ; 
and  the  whole  function  of  thought  is  but  one  step  in  the  produc- 
tion of  action  habits.  If  there  were  any  part  of  thought  that 
made  no  difference  in  the  thought's  practical  consequences,  then 
that   part  would   be   no   element   of   thought's   significance."* 

Thus  we  see  that  the  most  characteristic  doctrine  of  the 
method  before  us  is  that  the  meaning  of  an  idea,  or  concept, 
comes  out  only  as  it  modifies  activity.  In  the  idea  itself  there 
seems  to  be  nothing  inherent  that  determines  whether  its  effect.^ 
will  be  of  one  kind  or  another.  All  we  can  say  of  it  is  that,  if 
it  remains  a  vital  mental  content,  it  will  have  some  sort  of 
overt  consequences.  All  such  contents  apparently  stand  on  the 
same  level  in  so  far  as  they  are  merely  beliefs,  or  opinions. 
And  pragmatism,  as  expounded  by  James,  holds  that  our  world 
of  fact  is  in  some  measure  conditioned  by  previous  beliefs,  and 
the  order  that  has  once  got  established  reacts  back  on  the  ideas 
that  have  not  as  yet  emerged  into  full  fact. 

The  test  of  the  reality  of  an  idea  is  its  power  to  influence 
action,  and  the  way  in  which  any  sort  of  action  or  conduct  comes 
into  existence,  is  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  idea  or 
belief  that  it  should  be  so.  That  is  to  say,  our  conscious  atti- 
tudes are  naturally  organized  with  reference  to  action;  hence, 


*  Irving  King.       Pragmatism  as  a  Philosophic  Method,  Phil.  Rev.,  Vol. 
XII,  5. 


51 

they  are  meaningless  unless  they  in  some  way  modify  or  pro- 
duce activity.  And  this  capacity  to  produce  change  seems  to  bo 
conditioned  entirely  by  what  is  already  objectively  real.  Mere 
working,  however,  will  not  establish  the  validity  of  a  concept. 
As  James  and  Royce  demand,  a  working  of  a  certain  hind  is 
essential.  Xot  only  must  we  see  ivhat  tlifference  a  concept  pro- 
duces, but  what  kind  of  a  difference  it  ought  to  make,  in  order 
to  make  pragmatism  a  philosophical  doctrine.  For  instance,  a 
true  philosophy  must  be  more  than  a  logical  one.  It  must  also 
be  able  to  awaken  active  impulses  or  satisfy  aesthetic  demands. 
There  are,  however,  various  kinds  of  active  impulses,  and  there- 
fore we  must  look  still  further  for  a  standard;  that  is,  a  thing 
not  rational  merely  because  it  makes  a  difference  in  conduct. 
James  finds  this  further  criterion  in  the  familiarity  of  the 
action  that  is  aroused  by  the  thought;  that  which  suggests  cus- 
tomary movements  in  which  we  can  easily  pass  from  one  thing 
to  another,  we  regard  as  rational.  The  suggested  activity  must 
further  be  congruous  with  our  spontaneous  powers,  must  not 
baffle  or  contradict  our  active  propensities.  In  the  above  state- 
ment we  find  a  radical  difference  from  dialectical  philosophy. 
Pragmatism  sets  over  the  concept  of  a  rational  philosophy 
against  a  merely  logical  one,  for  it  assumes  that  thought  may 
be  logical  and  yet  not  reasonable.  For  after  all,  we  act  as 
though  the  world  of  activity  was  a  given  fact,  and  in  virtue  of 
this  fact,  it  is  valid.  Hence,  congruily  of  the  new  with  the  old 
is  the  test  of  the  reasonableness  of  the  new.  So  that  a  thought 
or  experience  comes  true  when  proved  to  produce  such  new 
results  as  are  in  harmony  with  old  facts. 

To  sum  up,  we  may  say  of  pragmatism  that,  as  first  pro- 
posed by  Peirce,  it  primarily  furnishes  a  practical  maxim,  to 
the  effect  that  consequences  in  action  or  conduct  of  any  concept 
or  idea  are  really^ll  there  can  be  to  the  meaning  of  the  concept. 
It  is  not,  however,  mere  consequences  that  concern  the  prag- 
matist.     There  is  a  "concrete  reasonableness"  over  and  above 


52 

all  concepts,  an  objective  system  of  which  they  are  to  become 
a  part  if  they  refer  to  real  differences  in  the  ultimate  constitu- 
tion of  things. 

The  emphasis  of  both  James  and  Peirce  is  essentially  on 
the  practical.  The  theoretical  is  constantly  to  submit  to  the 
test  of  the  concrete.  And  by  concrete  I  mean  the  conception 
that  finds  its  proof  and  test  in  the  analysis  of  everything  thai 
betrays  a  reflective  elaboration  in  the  process  of  experience. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  this  that  makes  pragmatism  an 
attractive  doctrine.  The  man  who  is  impatient  with  meta- 
physics feels  that  here  at  last  he  can  escape  the  vpf^aries  of 
theoretical  speculation  by  referring  everything  to  concrete  expe- 
rience. 


\ 


CONCLUSIONS^ 

From  the  foregoing  investigation  we  may  conclude  that  the 
concept  of  experience  is  elaborated  for  the  first  time  in  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Stoics.  The  ancients  could  not  .have  spoken 
of  the  concept  of  experience  in  relation  to  knowledge,  for  they 
accepted  knowledge  as  given  and  ready  made.  With  them  it 
was  only  a  matter  of  defining  what  knowledge  was,  rather  than 
explaining  its  origin. 

In  modern  times  the  theory  of  the  concept  of  experience 
becomes  significant,  for  modern  philosophy  becomes  critical.  It 
goes  back  of  the  ancients  and  asks  how  knowledge  is  possible  at 
all,  and  in  giving  account  of  a  possible  knowledge  it  must 
necessarily  look  into  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up  that 
knowledge.  Such  critical  procedure  demands  proofs  and  tests 
for  the  truth  of  such  a  possibility,  and  the  concept  of  experience 
becomes  the  basis  of  knowledge.  Up  to  the  time  of  Locke  the 
ontological  and  cosmological  problem  was  paramount,  but  he 
placed  more  weight  upon  the  psychological,  or  rather  the  episte- 
mological  problem.  He  examined  the  ways  in  which  the  human 
mind  attains  to  knowledge,  and  concluded  that  through  sensuous 
intuitions  we  get  ideas  of  objects.  The  ideas  are  stamped  upon 
our  mind,  which  is  a  blank  tablet.  The  senses  are  the  avenues 
through  which  the  objects  project  their  images  and  give  rise  to 
a  consciousness  of  them.  This  is  the  sensuous  experience  wdiich 
Locke  adopts  as  his  basis  of  knowledge.  This  view  swayed  the 
mind  of  the  entire  Empirical  School. 

Locke,  however,  was  not  entirely  free  from  the  ontological 
influences  of  his  predecessors.     He  clearly  distinguishes  primary 


54 

from  secondary  qualities  of  things;  the  latter  are  produced  in 
us  as  sensations,  such  as  color,  tone,  etc.,  but  are  not  present  in 
objects,  while  the  former,  such  as  bulk,  ligure,  etc.,  are  inherent 
in  the  objects  themselves,  and  we  only  form  notions  about  them 
by  an  inner  reflection.  Such  a  theory  carried  to  its  logical 
consequence  must  become  untenable.  And  Hume  clearly  shows 
this  fallacy.  He  agrees  with  Locke  as  to  the  absence  of  the 
intellectual  factor  (in  the  ideal  sense).  Then  sense-experience 
is  the  sole  basis  of  validity.  Only  our  present,  momentary 
sensuous  intuitions  or  those  of  our  past  experiences  retained 
in  memory  are  known  to  us.  Since  then  such  ideas  as  of  sub- 
stance and  causality  are  not  mediated  to  us  through  sensuous 
intuitions,  we  are  unable  to  know  anything  of  them.  In  carry- 
ing out  Locke's  theory  to  its  logical  conclusion,  Hume  gave  rise 
to  the  profounder  investigations  of  Kant. 

The  philosopher  from  Koenigsberg  was  neither  satisfied 
with  the  onesidedness  of  the  theory  of  the  dogmatic-idealistic 
school  of  Leibnitz,  nor  with  that  of  the  empirical  one  of  Locke. 
He  started  all  over  again,  and  as  a  result  gave  the  concept  of 
experience  a  new  aspect — he  was  not  satisfied  with  a  passive 
mind.  It  is  the  activity  of  the  understanding  exerted  upon  the 
raw  material  given  through  the  senses  that  constitutes  Kant's 
concept  of  experience.  Both  elements  are  the  indispensable  con- 
stituents that  go  to  make  up  knowledge.  The  senses  cannot 
think  and  the  mind  cannot  see.  The  mind  receives  the  impres- 
sions through  the  senses  and,  transvaluing  them,  gives  them 
form,  and  thus  produces  knowledge.  Experience,  then,  is 
not  a  terminus  a  quo  but  ad  quem.  Kant,  however,  deals  with 
the  knowledge  of  appearances,  of  phenomena.  Things  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  he  maintains,  we  cannot  know,  because  we 
cannot  verify  that  knowledge  in  the  sphere  of  our  experience. 
It  remained,  then,  for  Kant's  successors  to  explain  how  we 
come  to  know  the  noumenal  world- order. 

Fichte,  in  elaborating  the  concept  of  experience  as  a  crite- 


55 

rion  of  knowledge,  develops  the  subjective  side  of  Kantianism 
to  its  extreme,  while  Sehelling  does  the  same  thing  with  the 
objective  side  of  Kantianism.  Experience,  says  Fichte,  is  the 
fact-act,  the  synthesizing  activity  of  the  mind,  the  unity  of  an 
active,  striving,  purposive  consciousness,  the  subject-objectivity. 

Hegel  tries  to  blend  the  theories  of  Fichte  and  Sehelling. 
He  agrees  with  Fichte's  fact-act  and  with  Sehelling  as  to  the 
possibility  of  having  absolute  knowledge.  But  he  objects  to 
their  method.  He  discards  Schelling's  method  as  producing  a 
ready-made  knowledge,  as  if  shot  out  of  a  pistol.  W^e  do  not 
Lave  knowledge,  Hegel  says,  boxed  in  receptacles  ready  for  us 
to  label  at  pleasure.  In  order  to  attain  absolute  knowdedge,  we 
must  pass  through  a  series  of  degrees.  AVe  begin  with  sensuous 
appearance,  and  by  the  dialectical  method  develop  the  concept, 
until  we  obtain  absolute  knowledge  of  phenomena  through  a 
combination  of  outer  and  inner  experience.  The  thing-in-itself 
is  only  an  abstraction. 

And  finally,  Herbart  tried  to  get  all  the  truth  out  of  all 
these  previous  expositions  of  the  concept  of  experience.  He 
was  a  sort  of  an  eclectic.  He  says  we  begin  wdth  experience, 
and  under  this  term  he  includes  an  inner  and  an  outer  experi- 
ence. But  we  shall  find  contradictions  betAveen  what  is  given 
from  these  two  sources.  We  must  appeal  to  Logic,  he  argues, 
in  order  to  remove  these  contradictions  and  clear  up  the  matter, 
and  thus  attain  to  true  knowledge.  But  experience  at  all  events 
is  the  first  element  in  knowledge,  and  ultimately  becomes  its 
basis,  for  without  it  knowledge  would  be  impossible. 

In  conclusion  we  noted  that,  while  preceding  philosophies 
as  considered,  had  laid  stress  upon  the  intellectual  way  of  ar- 
riving at  truth,  Pragmatism,  which  still  is  immature  as  a  philo- 
sophical doctrine  and  scarcely  deserving  a  place  in  the  history 
of  philosophy,  nevertheless  marks  a  healthy  tendency,  viz. :  to 
consider  the  problems  of  the  world,  not  by  the  intellect  alone, 
but  bv  the  whole  of  man's  rational  natnre. 


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57 

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